Lewis Hamilton's confidence dented in Malaysia as Red Bull join Ferrari in bid to derail Brit's title charge

Hamilton holds a lead of 34 points over Sebastian Vettel after finishing second in Sepang but with Mercedes increasingly under pressure the race to the title won't be straightforward

Lewis Hamilton extended his advantage on Sunday but the race for the title is anything but over (Getty)

“We should be better in Suzuka next weekend,” Lewis Hamilton mused in Sepang on Sunday evening, after his run of three consecutive grand prix victories had been stopped by Max Verstappen and Red Bull. “It will be much cooler than here and we’ll have a different aero package. But we can’t really say until we get there.”

If his tone lacked ultimate confidence, it wasn’t surprising.

For a team that started their last two race weekends well on the back foot, Mercedes can be satisfied to have turned things round in pretty spectacular style on both occasions. Hamilton, after all, now holds a lead of 34 points over Sebastian Vettel after winning the Singapore GP and finishing second to Verstappen on Sunday.

Vettel, meanwhile, crashed out in Singapore and took both Verstappen and team-mate Kimi Raikkonen with him, and was only fourth on Sunday. But as is so often the case in F1, things go much deeper than the surface results.

Ferrari have had two disastrous races. Singapore was an unmitigated fiasco; in Malaysia the Scuderia were already reeling after the engine problem that befell the German on Saturday, and consigned him to the back of the grid, when just before the start of the race something similar befell Raikkonen just, who had only just missed out on pole position and seemed all set to clear off into the distance and score the victory that team appeared to have denied him in Monaco and Hungary in their quest to do the best for Vettel. With one red car out before the start, and the other having to climb back into contention, things were tough, especially as Ferrari ought to have walked both races.

Yet Vettel’s excellent drive through from 20th to an honourable fourth - having challenged but failed to pass Daniel Ricciardo for the final podium slot - underlined the current speed of the Ferrari on this type of high downforce track. While it might not look it, Sepang, according Mercedes boss Toto Wolff, requires the fourth highest aerodynamic downforce load after Singapore, Monaco and Hungary.

Mercedes pulled off a spectacular recovery from what he called their “worst ever” Friday – in Russia they were 0.670s off, in Singapore 0.703s, in Monaco 1.153s; here the gap after the first two sessions was 1.416s. After he reverted to the Singapore aero package Hamilton bounced back as only he can to take pole position, though the fact that Raikkonen failed by only 0.045s to beat him suggested that Vettel, usually the quicker of the two, should have taken pole but for his engine troubles.

Verstappen overtook Hamilton at the start before racing to victory (Getty)

So though Hamilton finished a decent second, limiting damage as much as he could on a day when Mercedes had no answer to Red Bull and he sensibly did not push it to the extreme defending against Verstappen’s crucial and successful challenge for the lead going in Turn One on the fourth lap, there was a strong element of luck involved.

“I still believe that with the set-up Mercedes had in Singapore I could have beaten everyone to win there even if the Ferraris hadn’t taken themselves out,” he said on Sunday. “We had the pace in the wet and the benefit of a soft car. But we have been really fortunate here, and that’s down to our engines which are really strong. I shouldn’t have come away first and second from two of our bogey tracks. Red Bull and Ferrari had eight-tenths on us here. Max was pulling away from me that that rate after he passed me.”

While Ferrari were holding another post-mortem, wondering just what they have to do to get a break with a car that is working extremely well, Mercedes had a lengthy debrief here on Sunday evening. Both Hamilton and Wolff described it in glowing terms.

Hamilton extended his championship lead despite finishing second to the Dutchman (Getty)

Referring earlier to Valtteri Bottas’s recent struggles to match Hamilton’s pace, and the tough race he had endured running the unsuccessful new aero configuration on Sunday, Wolff had said, “A wise man once said that smooth seas do not tough sailors make.” That could also be applied to the situation the team faces overall.

Despite being reflective rather than elated, as he was in Belgium, Italy and Singapore, Hamilton said he was still positive.

“The debrief was very positive. And I feel that way, because it was one of the best we’ve had. When you win there’s often not a lot to say in terms of feedback. But when you’ve had a difficult day there are more questions and more detail to go into. My comments and Valtteri’s are really important for us. Things happened this weekend that are not acceptable to this level of team.

Hamilton now faces challengers from both Ferrari and Red Bull (Getty)

“I’m really happy with my performance, and what I got out of the car. And the team are really pumped up to see what they can do to rectify the problems on this car. They’ll download all the data and review the aero package and look at all the data points to understand what approach we need for the next race.

“I’ve already told them what I feel is the best way to start next weekend, and they’ll be analysing that to see if that’s correct.” This is engineering at the highest level, just as it is at Ferrari.

Despite Hamilton’s current advantage, the title battle certainly isn’t over yet. And much as the fight is down to the drivers on a Sunday afternoon, it is also down to the engineers prior to that, placing a huge premium on them gaining the maximum understanding of how to set up their cars as they look for clues to potential performance gains and, if necessary, how to minimise their shortcomings on specific upcoming tracks.

But now, just to complicate the issue, Red Bull have started to find the sweet spot of their hitherto disappointing RB13. The fact that a third contender has the potential to take points away from them should concern both Ferrari and Mercedes equally as their battle intensifies.