Charles Leclerc stuck up for his Ferrari teammate Lewis Hamilton after brutal brake problems wrecked both their nights at the Singapore Grand Prix, calling the whole mess a “total headache” beyond Hamilton’s control.
Hamilton was cruising toward fifth place after a slick two-stop strategy around Marina Bay, his fresh soft tires giving him the juice to hunt down Mercedes newcomer Andrea Kimi Antonelli. Then, disaster—his brakes started cooking. The grip vanished, the gap melted, and suddenly Fernando Alonso was breathing down his neck.
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He’d been smart early, jumping Leclerc in the pits, but the heat under those carbon discs was brutal. Even with a five-second penalty slapped on him for straying wide, he somehow clung to eighth just ahead of Alonso’s lunge.
Leclerc spilled the real story later: “It’s been like that from lap seven or eight,” he told Sky Sports F1. “Lewis and I had to manage a lot more than the others, and we paid the price for it. When you have new tires and see P5 ahead, you push—but the brakes couldn’t handle that.”
The Monegasque added that the team needs to understand why temperatures ran so high in the humid conditions. “Surely they were too hot in these temperatures,” he said.
Hamilton, meanwhile, chose to focus on the positives. “We had great pace and got the strategy right, but the brake issue cost us,” he said. “We’ll regroup, learn, and go again in Austin.”
Six races left, Leclerc’s 48 points clear, but unless Ferrari sorts this nonsense fast, 2026 might look even uglier.
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