Hamilton loses point lead with frustrating third place in Singapore
Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton saw his slender championship lead turn into a deficit to teammate Nico Rosberg after he could only manage third place in Singapore.
Hamilton has not been comfortable with the setup all weekend and, in the race, he was not able to match the pace of either his teammate or Red Bull Racing's Daniel Ricciardo. He now lies eight points behind Rosberg.
Hamilton admitted he was frustrated in the first part of the race when he was asked by the team to manage his brakes.
"I was struggling with my brakes, they were way overheating, so I just had to slow down," he said. "So I just had to watch the other guys pull away and I was just looking at different ways to try and get them back under control.
"Eventually, once I did my second or third stop, all of a sudden my brakes were under control. But of course, toward the end I still got a bit of heat in them."
Hamilton was able to pick up his pace in the last part of the race, when he outran Kimi Raikkonen.
"It was partly because of the fresh tires, but mostly because the car was getting lighter, the brakes became a lot easier to control. Once my signal of brake overheating reduced, I was able to start to pick up the pace. I was still getting the warnings toward the end but, like the last 10 laps, I just kind of just let it continue flashing as a warning and hoped for the best. Fortunately, the pace was better."
Regarding the next race in Malaysia, he said: "We've got to have a good weekend. We've come from 43 points down, so theoretically eight points isn't anywhere near as steep as that but still, Nico's been performing fantastically well. This weekend he's done an amazing job. I expect him to continue like that so I've got make sure that I do the same."
