Lewis Hamilton: My apologies to the team

At the Singapore Grand Prix, the Mercedes team took just two points, making it the worst result of the season: Lewis Hamilton finished ninth and George Russell finished the race in fourteenth, two laps behind the leader. The team promised to draw conclusions from the mistakes made.

Lewis Hamilton (9th): “I think we started the weekend well, but unfortunately the stage ended without success. I did everything I could, but it was impossible to overtake. Today it came down to being the first to switch to slicks at the right time.

Carlos Sainz, despite all my efforts, did not let himself be overtaken – a dangerous moment came in the seventh corner, when I locked the wheels. At such moments the heart stops, but you come back and try again and again.

My apologies to the team for not being able to earn more points. But we live, we learn and we will surely win back. It is necessary to analyze the past weekend and then prepare for Suzuka.

George Russell (14th): “Today we took the risk of switching to slicks – the decision could have paid off thanks to the safety car, but I had an incident with Mick. I don’t know what exactly happened there – I need to check everything.

I’m disappointed that I didn’t score any points this weekend, but I’m happy that we were able to solve the brake problems that started in the third practice and regain confidence. We showed how fast the car is and I am proud that we have made progress. Today my confidence has returned, so I’m full of optimism because the car was competitive.

Despite the fact that I didn’t score any points, the race turned out to be interesting – I liked the challenges of Singapore, but of course I want to finish in higher positions. There is a lot of work for Suzuka, but the positive result is that the car had potential today.”

Toto Wolff, Team Principal: “This season has taught us several lessons – and today was one of them. Our riders started on either side of the pack, but we couldn’t make the most of the car’s pace, which led to this result.

Lewis was fighting for the podium for most of the race, but he also struggled with the car’s balance, which was on the limit on this bumpy track. After blocking the rubber and damaging the wing, he had to go to the pits to change tires, which cost him the position.

He then lost several places again as the rivals made their pit stops just as they were on the safety car track and turned back for him. As a result, Lewis was stuck in a group of cars that had the same tires as him and was unable to regain the positions.

George lost his shot at points when he switched to slicks. Now we understand that we invited him to the pits too early, but at that point we had nothing to lose, so we decided to take a chance. Despite this, he continued to fight and could have earned points had he not been for the incident with Mick, which caused George to roll back to last place.

The biggest disappointment today is that we couldn’t take advantage of the speed we had in the second practice and qualifying. After this result, our battle for second place in the Constructors’ Championship has become more difficult, but we can pull ourselves together and put all our energy into the next round in Suzuka to come back.”