Real reason for Lewis Hamilton’s pace deficit against Charles Leclerc at Singapore comes to light

It is being reported that Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton was running a higher downforce wing compared to his teammate Charles Leclerc during the first two Practice sessions in Singapore. The seven-time F1 world champion headed into the Marina Bay Circuit on the back of a recent personal loss as he lost his beloved dog, Roscoe, this weekend.

The 40-year-old has looked competitive against his Monegasque teammate on the track ever since returning from the summer break last month. In the first two practice sessions as well, Hamilton looked like the more comfortable of the two Ferrari drivers as he consistently found himself at the higher end of the pecking order.

However, Lewis Hamilton could only manage a P10 in the FP2 session after he failed to set a representative lap time in a chaotic session. As per Auto Racer, the 105-time F1 race winner was running a higher downforce rear wing compared to Charles Leclerc, which was the reason behind his straight-line speed deficit of 5-6km/h to the latter.

The Ferrari duo would hope that the SF-25 would remain competitive overnight and be in contention for pole position alongside the McLarens and Max Verstappen on Saturday.

Lewis Hamilton reflects on his positive Friday Practice session in Singapore

Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton stated that he had a good day driving the SF-25 around the iconic Marina Bay Circuit under the lights for the first time at the 2025 Singapore Grand Prix.

As per RacingNews365, the 40-year-old reflected on his performance around the track and said:

"It was a good day, I enjoyed driving the car, it is the first time I'm driving a Ferrari at this track, and I've always wondered all these years from looking at on-boards, what the differences would be. It is the first time I got to feel that, and it was positive, but obviously, McLaren was very fast, and getting a clean lap was not easy.

"But I feel there are a lot of positives [from Friday], a lot of learnings, and I'm quite happy with the progress we've made from [FP1]. We made steps forward, so I feel like overnight, we probably won't change much, but of course, we'll try to refine the setup and see if we can extract a little bit more to get as close as we can to the McLarens."

Previously, Lewis Hamilton produced arguably his greatest qualifying performance around the circuit in Singapore in the 2018 edition, which proved to be pivotal in his winning the race and eventually winning the championship.

The Ferrari driver would hope for a similar level of performance this weekend in his bid to fight for a potential podium, which would be his first of the year in a main race.