Lewis Hamilton send Mercedes a warning that he might not make Q3 in qualifying at the 2024 Singapore GP on September 21 following a very challenging Free Practice 1 and 2 at the Marina Bay Circuit, as he found himself lost for words to describe his car.
It’s now two weekends in a row that the seven-time world champion has lacked any kind of connection to his car, which simply lacks the ability to turn into corners and lacks the rear end the 39-year-old is looking for.
As a result, he found himself languishing 12th in FP1 and 11th in FP2 and an alarming one second off the pace set by Lando Norris on Friday leaving the man with 349 Grand Prix starts baffled as to what his car needs to hook up to the track.
“I mean this car, it feels…,” Hamilton told F1 TV, as he gave Mercedes a warning at the 2024 Singapore GP. “It’s very difficult, it’s a very challenging day.
“We’ve tried everything set-up-wise and nothing seems to work with the set-up. So, it’s definitely very challenging and we’re already giving it everything and then you find out you’re a second off.
“Ultimately, I think [we’re] just a little bit lost at the moment and we’re not really sure where to put the car. At the moment, we won’t be going into Q3.”
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Catch up with Total Motorsport's latest Singapore GP coverage, including Max Verstappen's victory at Marina Bay, Ferrari's costly strategy gamble, the full race classification, and the updated 2026 Formula 1 Drivers' and Constructors' Championship standings.
The problem was so bad for the 105-time GP winner that he had the chief mechanic supervising changes to the rear end of the car, as they made adjustments to the torsion bar according to Sky Sports F1’s Ted Kravitz.
A torsion bar aims to provide stability and absorb shock to offer a predictable and consistent platform to a car, which is crucial at the Marina Bay Circuit due to the bumps from the street track.
Why is Hamilton struggling at the 2024 Singapore GP?
The airwaves were busy with the disgruntled voice of Hamilton in FP2 as he told his race engineer the problems with his W15, hitting out at the lack of rear end as well as the understeer.
Peter Bonnington didn’t do much to lighten the mood on that front either, by telling his driver that he was struggling for traction out of four different corners around the 4.940km circuit under the night lights of Singapore.
It follows a tough time at the 2024 Azerbaijan GP where the pace of September 13 simply deserted the Brit ahead of qualifying, although he managed to place himself seventh at the Baku City Circuit.
Mercedes then discovered small, but significant, incorrect set-up changes caused the loss of speed and relegated Hamilton to a pit-lane start in an experiment to see if they could find new pace as well as taking a new engine.
“The last race [Baku], I was like ‘I love the car, don’t change it too much,’” Hamilton told members of the media, including Total-Motorsport.com. “There were really, really small changes that I made, but as I said before, did the complete opposite of what they were supposed to do.
“And we didn’t find out till the end of the day. I got in the car on Saturday morning and I [had] massive understeer, I said, ‘This doesn’t feel normal.’
“And they’re like, ‘It should be fine, we set it up normally.’ It’s not till the end of the day we find out it’s not the case.”
