Here's the thing about Friday at the Marina Bay street circuit: Ferrari simply did not have the raw speed to fight for pole. Charles Leclerc managed to salvage third fastest in Sprint Qualifying ahead of the Singapore Grand Prix, ending up just over two tenths away from sprint polesitter Max Verstappen. Leclerc made it crystal clear that this was the absolute maximum potential of his machine.
Looking at the bigger picture, Leclerc pointed out that Ferrari has dropped off in performance over the last three or four races. While the Monegasque driver extracted what he could during the transition to the soft Pirelli tyre in the final SQ3 segment—having previously topped SQ2 on medium rubber—he refused to lean on tyre strategies or cooldown lap differences as an excuse.
It was looking good in SQ1 and SQ2 and then I don't really know where it went away,
"Honestly, I don't think it should be an excuse. I think the real pace the last three or four races, we've lost a little bit of our performance and we're just not fast enough to fight with them just yet," Leclerc said.
Things were even tougher on the other side of the Ferrari garage. Lewis Hamilton finished down in sixth fastest after a bruising SQ3 session, with the McLaren duo splitting the British driver from his team-mate. The seven-time World Champion had looked genuinely encouraging on the medium compound earlier in the day, but a switch to softs combined with a single flying lap left him wrestling a snapping rear end.
"It was looking good in SQ1 and SQ2 and then I don't really know where it went away," Hamilton admitted. He took the blame for a slightly different run plan, noting it was his own choice and that he got it wrong.
"Ultimately the car was just very oversteery on that lap. I don't know if the rears were not ready or were overheating, it was difficult to say but it was very snappy, very oversteery and it just wasn't a good lap overall. I had the pace in the first two sessions and then all of a sudden I didn't have the grip in the rear for some reason on that last lap. It is what it is."
