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

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.

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.

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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.

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