Lewis Hamilton believes Ferrari will be “very hard” to beat across the remainder of 2019, reckoning its SF90 is now a car capable of challenging for victory at each event.
Ferrari has held a straight-line speed advantage throughout the campaign but has often lacked pace on circuits that place an emphasis on high downforce or aerodynamic efficiency.
Ferrari had chances to win at grands prix such as Bahrain, Azerbaijan and Canada, but was substantially off the pace in Australia, Spain, France and Hungary.
It delivered close-run back-to-back victories in Belgium and Italy courtesy of Charles Leclerc but had been expected to struggle in Singapore, only to deliver a 1-2 finish, securing a hat-trick of wins.
Mercedes, meanwhile, finished off the podium with Hamilton’s overcut strategy relegating him from second to fourth, with team-mate Valtteri Bottas a subdued fifth.
“I tend to think I’m a realist so I see the situation we’re in,” said Hamilton.
“They’ve [Ferrari[ just come up with some sort of upgrade that’s perhaps put their car in… Maybe they already had a good car all year, it just wasn’t working in the right window. Maybe? Who knows?
“Because they couldn’t have brought – well maybe they did but it’s unlikely that they brought a massive, massive upgrade that brought them 20 or 30 points or something, which is the performance level you’d have expected they would have taken here.
“But clearly their car works really well everywhere now, so it’s going to be very hard to beat them, particularly as they are so quick on the straights.
“We can’t compete with them on the straights at the moment.
“But we have won before with not the best car, it’s just really how we deliver over the weekend and at the moment they are delivering better on both ends.
“If we were better in the operations area then I think we can just pip them.”
