Lewis Hamilton takes the blame for F1 qualifying blunder in Singapore

After showing massive promise during the opening segments of the Singapore Grand Prix sprint shootout, Scuderia Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton completely fell apart during the decisive final session. While his team-mate Charles Leclerc managed to secure a solid third-place starting position on the tight Marina Bay Street Circuit, the seven-time world champion will be forced to start Saturday's Sprint race down in sixth place.

Ultimately, the massive drop in ultimate qualifying pace was entirely self-inflicted.

While the rest of the Formula 1 grid utilized multiple cooldown laps to properly prepare their highly temperature-sensitive Pirelli soft tyres for a final flying lap in SQ3, Lewis Hamilton opted to take a gamble. The British driver explicitly requested that his side of the Maranello garage run a completely different tyre preparation sequence, completing only a single cooldown lap before pushing for pole position.