Hamilton: Mercedes “surprisingly close” to Ferrari

Lewis Hamilton did not put on the fastest Hyper-Soft tires during the first free practice session in the city-state, thus settling for an unrepresentative 6th time. 

On the other hand, the Briton ended the day on Friday with the second reference time, 11 thousandths behind the absolute best mark, owned by Ferrari and Kimi Raikkonen.

Even if Hamilton took advantage of last year's racing events to win in Singapore, Mercedes has rarely shown its advantage on the Marina Bay street circuit in recent seasons, unlike the Scuderia and Red Bull. 

« We achieved our objectives in FP1 by focusing on the Soft and Ultra-Soft tiress, declared the four-time world champion. We tried a couple of things on the car which worked quite well.. 

We refined these changes for the second session and finished surprisingly close to the Ferraris. I don't know if this discrepancy is real or not. We will have the answer on Saturday but the sensations behind the wheel are much better than in the past ». 

His teammate Valtteri Bottas was more discreet with the 8th and 5th achievements on Friday, but he is convinced of being in the fight for pole position.

« Ferrari and Red Bull are clearly very fast but we are not very far, confided the Finn. For my part, I didn't manage to put everything together to set a good time in EL2 but the pace is there and it will be very close in qualifying. ». 

A three-way fight that promises to be particularly enticing!