Lewis Hamilton rues Ferrari failure after costly Singapore GP penalty

Lewis Hamilton was left to rue a late Ferrari brake failure, which undid the "great attacking" pace he had shown before his post-race penalty.

Running in seventh and with a 51s gap to Liam Lawson behind, Ferrari opted to pit him for a set of soft tyres, with a late charge to try and pass Kimi Antonelli for fifth and rescue precious points in the constructors' battle for second with Mercedes and Red Bull.

Charles Leclerc waved Hamilton through as he took nearly four seconds a lap out of Antonelli and Leclerc, but as he approached the rear of the W16, Hamilton suffered a left-front brake failure, causing him to back-off and coast for the final three laps.

However, in doing so, he cut multiple corners on purpose, earning himself a five-second time penalty and dropping behind old rival Fernando Alonso, who had carved 43s out of Hamilton in three laps to finish 0.4s, before unleashing a furious radio tirade.

Hamilton was officially classified in eighth, but did take the fastest lap, the first of his Ferrari career to set a new all-time F1 record of 16 consecutive seasons with a fastest lap, eclipsing the 15 he jointly held with Michael Schumacher.

After the penalty was applied, Ferrari's deficit to Mercedes grew to 25 points, with Mercedes on 325 and Ferrari 300.

Reflecting on the weekend, Hamilton highlighted the "great attacking" pace he had shown on the soft tyres before the brake failure.

"It has been a challenging couple of days, but there were definitely some positives to take," he said.

"I’ve felt good in the car all weekend, and we had a strong final third of the race. The softs gave us great attacking pace and meant I could close down a big gap to the cars ahead.

"But unfortunately, a brake issue cost us the overtake and the chance to score more points.

"We had the potential to be further ahead this weekend, starting from qualifying, so the focus now is on maximising what we have going into Austin and executing cleanly to bring home as many points as possible."