Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsMercedes

Hamilton felt win was possible before failure

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Lewis Hamilton says he was confident he could challenge for victory in the Singapore Grand Prix before a loss of power forced him to retire.

The championship leader was running in fourth place having already pitted for soft tyres under an early safety car period, and keeping in touch with the lead trio of Sebastian Vettel, Daniel Ricciardo and Kimi Raikkonen. With the three ahead of him all on supersoft tyres, Hamilton says he was starting to believe he could win the race despite struggles for Mercedes all weekend.

“I was feeling super-optimistic in the car, I really was," Hamilton said. "The guys in front were on the option and I was on the prime and I was easily keeping up with the guys. I thought ‘you know what, we’ve got a race on our hands here’. The pace was nice, really under control.

"I was just waiting for that time when I could push and see what I could get from the car but obviously I didn’t get that. I lost power and I was hoping they would have a quick fix but it never came."

And Hamilton said he felt it was right to retire when he was sure there was no chance of scoring points due to his problem.

“I just lost power and they were telling me to make all these changes but nothing was making any difference. When I got overtaken by the Marussia’s [Manors] I knew really winning was out of the question. They started to pull away so I knew points would be out of the question.”

REPORT: Vettel takes third win as Hamilton retires in Singapore

AS IT HAPPENED: 2015 Singapore Grand Prix

Click here for some of the most memorable crashes at Singapore

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.