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"It's difficult to ever say if it's your best one or not, but that one felt the most complete lap that I think I might've ever done" - Lewis Hamilton
Saturday, September 15th, 2018.
Ferrari's formidable challenge to Mercedes' Formula 1 dominance had taken heavy blows in recent rounds at Hockenheim and Monza.
They needed a dominant weekend and, luckily for them, Round 15 at Singapore looked to be exactly that.
The downforce-heavy circuit had long been an Achilles' heel for the Silver Arrows as they struggled to keep pace with the Ferraris and Red Bulls on such circuits.
Lewis Hamilton: "It’s going to be a tough one. Ferrari and Red Bull are likely to be very quick. We just have to try and maximize what we have."
Practice brought encouraging results as Mercedes looked much closer to their rivals than initially expected, however they were still seen as underdogs as Qualifying rolled around on Saturday.
As the cars rolled out for their first run of Q3, the broadcast followed Kimi Raikkonen as he laid down the marker for Ferrari.
As Raikkonen finished his lap, the focus shifted to Lewis Hamilton who had been lighting up the timing screens with what looked to be a very decent lap but when he crossed the line, that time was absolutely extraordinary. Beyond any imagination.
1:36.015
3 seconds faster than 2017's pole.
3 tenths faster even than 2019's pole.
"Wow was that fast", Crofty exclaimed.
Max Verstappen would follow with an incredible lap himself, one that would've seen him take Pole on any other day of the week. He was still 3 tenths off Hamilton's lap time.
The second run saw little improvement.
That lap was truly untouchable.
Lewis exited his car, overwhelmed with what he had just achieved: "It felt like magic. I don’t think there was a moment in the lap that was wide or had any problems. It was just perfectly to the limit."
Toto Wolff stated he "couldn't explain what had happened on that lap", while Andrew Shovlin claimed: "We were looking at the overlays and simply couldn't find where the time was coming from. He was just finding grip that the sensors didn't say was there."
James Allison called it a lap that "felt like it had been delivered from another planet."
Lewis had beaten what the computers and simulations had deemed to be possible. He had reached perfection.
Verstappen and Bottas were also visibly impressed following the session, with the latter claiming to have no idea where Lewis had found the 7 tenths gap.
It was a lap that silenced even the great Niki Lauda, who had recently been critical of Lewis' off-track antics.
But when that time flashed on the screens, he took off his iconic red hat, as was his tradition when showing respect, and conceded that Hamilton was of the calibre to not let his those activities stand in the way of his greatness.
Paul Di Resta called it a "possibly championship-winning lap", and that's exactly what it was. It was the lap that killed Ferrari.
As Mark Webber later stated: "Cometh the hour, cometh the man"
So enjoy the Greatest Lap in the History of Formula 1
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