• Singapore Grand Prix
Comments: 11

Hamilton gutted to miss out on 'easy win'

ESPN Staff
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Lewis Hamilton retired from the lead of the race on lap 23 © Sutton Images
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Lewis Hamilton felt he missed out on an easy win at the Singapore Grand Prix after his gearbox failed while he was leading the race.

His McLaren ground to a halt on lap 23 after he'd spent a lap and half without third gear. The retirement leaves Hamilton 52 points adrift of Fernando Alonso at the top of the championship and he said he would now aim to win all of the remaining six races.

"It's obviously gutting when the car stops," Hamilton said. "I was just cruising and if I needed any more I could have picked up the pace easily. Today would have been an easy win.

"Unfortunately, that was not the case and the Red Bulls did a good job, and Fernando and obviously Jenson. We've got six races left and I'll keep pushing. We need to win all of them. I won't give up, I'll keep pushing to the end. This makes it a lot harder for us to do now, but as I said we've still got six races."

He said he had felt the problem coming and that McLaren had hoped he might be able to see the end of the race.

"We have this thing on our car that gives seamless gearshifts and eventually I lost what we call e-shifts and then it became quite an aggressive shift. So I told the team I had lost my e-shifts and they said I should be able to see it out until the end of the race, but then I lost third gear and all the gears went. It was a gearbox failure for sure."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.
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