Lewis Hamilton was naturally disappointed to see his run of seven consecutive pole positions come to an end in Singapore on Saturday, but admitted he was not surprised to see Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari take top spot during qualifying.
The Mercedes AMG PETRONAS driver could only qualify fifth around the Marina Bay circuit, feeling the team have struggled to get the Supersoft Pirelli tyre in particular to work around the street circuit in comparison to other teams.
“It is what it is today; I enjoyed it out there but we just didn’t have the pace,” said Hamilton afterwards. “We weren’t surprised with the pace of the Ferrari as it was like that the whole weekend.
“We don’t know the reason why we weren’t as quick today, we obviously didn’t get the tyres switched on like everybody else did, but we need to look into it.
“We haven’t lost any performance on the car compared to two weeks ago but the guys in front were just too fast today.
“Tomorrow is going to be hard; it’s difficult to overtake but I’m still excited, I’ll be pushing hard and will do everything I can to make up positions.”