Hamilton and Verstappen need perfection to beat each other

Singapore's Marina Bay is rarely talked about as a great driver track, but it should be.

It's an unforgiving, bumpy, old-school street circuit that rewards commitment but punishes even small errors. This makes it a great setting for a possible head-to-head between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen, especially with the pair separated by just 0.187 seconds so far this weekend.

After Friday practice, Mercedes appears to hold the advantage but Verstappen wasn't far behind. Whereas at some tracks, even a disadvantage of a tenth can doom a team's hope of pole position, at the Marina Bay circuit margins can be a lot bigger and the swings caused by a perfect lap are easily sizeable enough to cover a gap that would be insurmountable at many other tracks.

This is a circuit where drivers really can deliver magical laps.

Just look at what happened back in 2008. F1's first visit to Singapore will forever live in infamy because of Nelson Piquet Jr's deliberate, strategic crash to assist Fernando Alonso's run to victory, but there was something else remarkable that weekend.

On Saturday night, Ferrari driver Felipe Massa delivered what stands as one of the great forgotten F1 qualifying laps to take pole position by 0.664s from Hamilton.

Such mighty efforts are not unusual around here. Last year, Hamilton himself produced an astonishing lap in Q3 to grab pole position by 0.339s from Verstappen. So it's possible to be within striking distance with a perfect lap even in a slightly slower car.

"It's a bit of a blur, the whole lap. I don't know who was driving," said Hamilton when asked about last year's lap. "It was obviously a special lap. Tyre temperatures are a huge issue. You get to the last sector and the tyres are dropping off, it gets a little bit trickier, it's obviously such a long lap. I think it was just a combination of everything.

Qualifying could come down to which of Hamilton or Verstappen nails the lap that's closest to perfection. Who could want more?

"The previous sessions had been up and down, probably hadn't put a good lap together all weekend and it just happened to be right lap at the right moment.

"The chances of that happening are quite slim but it just happened at the right time where the stars were aligned, I guess.

"But more so the temperatures and just the flow ended up right but the focus that you need here, as all these drivers will know, is just very intense, positioning is everything and timing, really getting yourself into a rhythm is really key here to maximising the width of the circuit and the potential that's in your car."

So what did Friday tell us about the potential of the Mercedes and Red Bull cars that are expected - unless Ferrari springs a surprise - to lead the way in qualifying.?

The short answer is that Hamilton had the advantage on outright pace.

Single-lap pace

1 Mercedes (Hamilton), 1m38.773s
2 Red Bull (Verstappen), 1m38.957s
3 Ferrari (Vettel), 1m39.591s
4 McLaren (Sainz), 1m40.145s
5 Renault (Hulkenberg), 1m40.324s
6 Toro Rosso (Gasly), 1m40.637s
7 Racing Point (Perez), 1m40.875s
8 Alfa Romeo (Giovinazzi), 1m41.128s
9 Haas (Grosjean), 1m41.392s
10 Williams (Russell), 1m41.445s

But the lap times don't tell the full story. Verstappen was 0.223s up on Hamilton after the first two sectors only to lose 0.416s in the final sector to drop behind into second place overall.

Verstappen complained over the radio after completing the lap that "my last sector got compromised quite a bit" and it's true that he had to clear Daniil Kvyat's Toro Rosso, Carlos Sainz Jr's McLaren and George Russell's Williams through that part of the lap. So could he have been faster?

Ferrari, as winner of the last two races with Charles Leclerc, should be part of the conversation for victory but looked very much third-best

Very possibly, although it would be wise to remember Hamilton's comment about needing to keep the tyres right for the whole lap so we can't assume Verstappen's advantage over the first minute would have been matched in ideal circumstances. Certainly, he could have been quicker, but it's unclear by how much.

That's what makes the possible battle for pole position so dramatic. Even at just under two-tenths behind, Verstappen is within range and given the gap could be even narrower, or even in his favour (albeit with all the usual caveats applied to Friday practice judgement). Potentially, qualifying could come down to which of the two of them nails the lap that's closest to perfection. Who could want more?

When it came to long-run pace, things looked very good indeed for Mercedes.

Hamilton put in a decent run at a stellar pace, although he did report over the radio that his softs were done for at the end of the stint. Verstappen's long run was a bit more steady and left him trailing by just over eight-tenths per lap. This is based on five counting laps on softs, with anomalous laps removed.

Long-run pace

1 Mercedes (Hamilton), 1m45.043s
2 Red Bull (Verstappen), 1m45.869s
3 Toro Rosso (Kvyat), 1m46.060s
4 Ferrari (Leclerc), 1m46.331s
5 Racing Point (Perez), 1m46.475s
6 Renault (Ricciardo), 1m46.561s
7 McLaren (Norris), 1m46.945s
8 Alfa Romeo (Giovinazzi), 1m47.470s
9 Haas (Magnussen), 1m48.425s
10 Williams (Russell), 1m47.458s (2 laps)

This pattern is unusual as often you would expect to see Red Bull looking stronger on long runs than on the single-lap pace. But it's risky to read too much into it given the unique challenges of the Singapore circuit and the high degradation that many encountered. That said, Mercedes can draw plenty of confidence from that pace.

"We've not always had an easy time at this track but it looks like the car is working pretty well here this year," said head of trackside engineering Andrew Shovlin.

"Lewis has had a very solid day, the pace looked good on low and high fuel and he's been happy with the car from the first run. There is always time to find on a circuit like this as the better the balance, the more the driver can push to the limit but we have a good baseline to work from with him."

As Verstappen said after practice, qualifying is 95% of the job in Singapore

Valtteri Bottas, in the other Mercedes, was not a factor after a crash in first practice. He admits this isn't his favourite circuit and there were suspicions the rebuilt car might not have been 100% in the second session, but with Red Bull driver Alex Albon also setting his sights on the second row it seems the way is clear for Hamilton and Verstappen to fight it out at the front.

Ferrari, as winner of the last two races with Charles Leclerc, should be part of the conversation for victory but looked very much third-best on Friday. To that we must add the caveat that traffic compromised the qualifying simulation runs of both Ferrari drivers, so we didn't necessarily see its peak single-lap pace.

Leclerc appeared to suffer from significant degradation on his long run on softs, suggesting Ferrari still has work to do. Vettel mentioned that the feel of the front end wasn't quite right, which is not unusual for him this season, but it's clear the balance of the car hasn't quite been dialled in. Still unless the tweaks Ferrari has brought here have transformed its car, it's difficult to see it being in contention to win on merit.

In the midfield, McLaren and Renault led the way on single-lap pace, but there were a couple of surprises on the long runs. Toro Rosso ranked third - ahead of Ferrari - based on its soft run with Kvyat, who said "I felt pretty good on my red tyre".

The updated Racing Point, which features a significant upgrade package including front wing, brake ducts, floor and a Singapore-specific rear wing, was fifth quickest on the long runs in the hands of Sergio Perez. This is the culmination of the upgrade process Racing Point has gone through over the course of five weekends and it's hoped will be a significant step forward. Crucially, the early signs are that it has improved the stability of the car.

But up at the front, there are reasons to hope for another showdown between Hamilton and Verstappen on Saturday. If the outright pace potential of the Mercedes and the Red Bull are similar, it could come down to who nails that perfect lap. And as Verstappen said after practice, qualifying is 95% of the job in Singapore.