MARINA BAY, Singapore -- Lewis Hamilton is not expecting an easy race at the Singapore Grand Prix after struggling for performance during qualifying at the Marina Bay street circuit.
Hamilton qualified 0.7s off teammate Nico Rosberg and will start the race from third on the grid behind Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo. After losing practice time on Friday with a technical issue, Hamilton said he struggled to find a set-up ahead of qualifying and is concerned it could also impact his race pace.
"Honestly I can't really take you through it [the problem] because I don't understand it all at the moment," he said. "They're trying to understand everything. There are several different things that could be the issue, but I don't know just yet. I'll just sit in there with my engineers trying to figure it out.
"I didn't do the long run on Friday so I don't know [how it will impact race pace]. I might luck in and it might be just right for tomorrow, but it doesn't sound particularly likely that that is the case.
"It might be the case that it is just not great and I should still be able to hold position at least, so I will find out tomorrow. But for sure the time lost yesterday is proving to be more valuable than I thought."
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff said the team had failed in finding the right set-up for Hamilton this weekend.
"Lewis' car was not where it should have been after FP1. As you know it is not always easy to find the right compromise with the set-up of the car and getting the tyre in the right window and giving the driver a comfortable feeling and here we have failed. He didn't have a car today that he was able to extract all of the performance from. The set-up was not right. He didn't have the tool.
"First of all you have to give the driver running time and we haven't given him running time because the car broke down yesterday and if you can't run the car here, you can't find out which set-up works for you and you can't really gain confidence in the car either, which was less his particular problem. It was more the car didn't generate any grip or didn't generate the amount of grip that Nico had."
Hamilton said it would be difficult to pass the Red Bull in front of him if he does not make a move stick into the first corner.
"Getting past Daniel could be a pit stop or a Safety Car, generally that's the only way to get past. I don't know which one is going to work for me. Obviously I will try and get him at the start, but if I don't then I will just try and stay close behind but their tyres should be able to go a long way and they've got more downforce as well so they are in a very strong position."