EXPLAINED: How Lewis Hamilton was beaten by team-mate in Singapore qualifying

hamilton, russell, canada, 2023, mercedes — Photo: © LAT Images

F1 Analysis

EXPLAINED: How Hamilton was beaten by team-mate in Singapore qualifying

Former Red Bull aero expert Shubham Sangodkar runs the rule over Mercedes' drivers

Shubham Sangodkar

Sunday 17 September 2023 10:57 Updated: 15:17

It’s been an uncharacteristically slow qualifying season for Lewis Hamilton.

Whether it’s George Russell’s development as a driver, the characteristics of the 2023 edition Mercedes or just the natural passage of time, gone are the days when one can expect the all-time pole position leader to out-qualify his teammate race in, race out.

Of course, while Hamilton edged the qualifying battle 13-9 last season, Russell did actually claim more points (262-233), more head-to-head race results (11-9) and more fastest race laps (12-8). But still, Hamilton did have last season's edge over a single lap.

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This season's head-to-head stands at 8-7 in Russell’s favour. Let’s dive into the data to see how the team's theoretical junior driver out-qualified his senior partner at Marina Bay.

Russell and Hamilton were pretty neck and neck in the first and third sectors in Singapore, and it was in the second sector that the seven-time champion dropped off.

Turns 7, 8 and 9

The first major time loss was through Turns 7-9. Hamilton seemed to consistently struggle with getting the power down, causing him to leave time on the table.

In addition to that, a timid exit out of Turn 9 also caused him to bleed time down the straight.

Turn 10

The next major loss came through Turns 10-13. It was more of the same issue, where Hamilton was unable to get on the throttle as fast or as sharply as Russell, causing him to leave a lot of time – almost 0.2s – on the table.

Through most of sector 3, Hamilton was, for the most part, able to keep up with Russell barring a few instances of the same issue.

With these struggles, one has to wonder if the issue was a vehicle balance problem that was making the car oversteer on the throttle. Hamilton famously prefers a car that is on the nose, so for him to be facing these issues is uncharacteristic.

Shubham Sangodkar is a former F1 Aerodynamicist with a Master's in Racing Car Design specialising in F1 Aerodynamics and F1 Data Analysis. He also posts aerodynamics content on his YouTube channel, which can be found here.