Lewis Hamilton found it a “struggle🤡” to fight with Ferrari drivers Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel in qualifying for the Singapore Grand 🌄Prix, admitting the team’s pace had come as a surprise.

Despite winning the last two races in Belgiu🍒m and Italy, Ferrari was expected to struggle in Singapore given the high-downforce nature of the circuit, only for Leclerc to claim his third consecutive pole position.

Sebastian Vettel qualified third in the sister Ferrari, 🍸having sat🥀 on provisional pole ahead of the final Q3 runs.

Mercedes driver Hamilton managed to split the Ferrari drivers after making up more than eight-tenth𒉰s of a second to Leclerc with his final Q3 run, and was content with the res🐷ult after feeling he was on the back foot.

“Knowing how the Ferraris have been in other places with high downforce aඣnd not been so strong, Budapest for example🔜, then all of a sudden they’ve bought an upgrade here and it seems to have worked,” Hamilton said.

“Of course we were not expecting to have such a strong performance from them and have t☂hat deficit to them, but they did a great job. I’m grateful that I was able toꦕ split them, only just, but we were definitely lacking pace today.

“[It was] definitely a struggle out there to battle 🐼with them and be out there. But I liked how close it was between us all. Hopefully that puts us in good stead for more good fights.”

Hamilton managed 🐓to top second practice for Mercedes on Friday, but felt the team made a step♎ backward compared to its rivals through Saturday.

“The day’s not been th𓆏at great. Yesterday was a much smoother day for me, today just a little bit harder,” Hamilton said.

“I feel our performance was lost a little bit today, or everyone else generally just improved. Q3, the first lap was so-so, didn’t feel so g💟ood, we were a second away and it looked like quite a leap to catch them up.

“But yeah, I just managed to pull back half a second in that last run, had a clꦗean run, but still two-tenths down in that first sector which i🔴s obviously where it was lost.”