Hamilton points to Ferrari example at 'bogey' Mercedes track

Lewis Hamilton has pointed to the example of Ferrari's car concept on street circuits as he labelled Marina Bay as a Mercedes "bogey track". 

The seven-time world champion produced arguably his greatest lap in F1 in securing pole position for the 2018 Singapore Grand Prix, but Mercedes has often deemed the race to be an outlier despite relative success.

Hamilton took another pole in 2014, and won the event for the team in '14, '17 and '18 to go with his 2009 McLaren triumph to place him just one overall victory behind Sebastian Vettel. 

However, this has been teamed with poor performances for Hamilton in 2015, 2016, 2019, 2022 and 2023, with Mercedes' historically long-wheel base design proving troublesome at short, sharp 90-degree corner-heavy circuit. 

Instead, Hamilton pointed to the example of his 2025 team, Ferrari, which has taken pole every year the race has been held since 2017 (except 2018), with wins in '15, '19 and '23.

"I wouldn't say that this has ever been a really great track for me," the four-time Singapore winner told media including RacingNews365. 

"It's been a bit of bogey track for us with the way we design the cars and have designed cars, as if you look at a lot of street circuits, we've never been particularly strong, and at the more open circuits, are better.

"Look at us compared to Ferrari - mega in the last race [in Azerbaijan], and they'll be strong this weekend, but there is a certain design that they have which seems to bode well for these circuits. 

"Then we get to somewhere like Silverstone, where we are very strong, so there are a lot of good lessons to take from those, but ultimately when it comes to tracks like this, it is a struggle."