Lewis Hamilton: “I just didn’t drive fast enough…”

A frustrated Lewis Hamilton blamed himself for qualifying only fifth in Singapore, four places behind Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg.

Hamilton, who was some 0.322s off the German, was clearly not happy after the session.

“I don’t feel great, it was a poor qualifying for me,” he said. “That’s two bad qualifying sessions I’ve had so I’m just going to try and improve for next time. At least I got to Q3. I just wasn’t fast enough, there’s nothing to put it down to, I just didn’t drive fast enough.

“I was pushing as fast as I could, but I just wasn’t fast enough. There was a lot of grip in the tyres, and it’s the way you utilise them the most I think is where people find time, and I didn’t utilise them as well as others.”

Regarding the race, he said: “I can try and get up onto the podium, that’s going to have to be the target, try and get some good points tomorrow, but I’ve still got people to beat.”

Asked if he was confident that there would be no tyre issues, he added: “No, we’ll see tomorrow. It’s a different day. We could go well, we could go bad, we’ll see.”