F1: Does Lewis Hamilton suddenly fear for his title chances?

On a recent visit to Mexico, Lewis Hamilton went to the Black Jaguar White Tiger Foundation and scared a tiger by creeping up behind it. Yes, you read that right! The animal, named Nicole, in turn, didn’t attack the reigning F1 world champion. Instead, it just rolled on the ground once it recovered from the surprise.

When asked about the video on Twitter, the British driver said, “I have known Nicole since she was a kid, she recognises me and loves to play. She hasn’t known her mum ever, and she has grown up with a team that gives her love and affection. Of course, I don’t want to get eaten when I enter the cage. (But) I generally like danger and I don’t run away from it.”

Starting trouble

When you are a Formula One driver used to racing around at over 300 kilometres and hour, danger takes an altogether different meaning. It is about safety from accidents or things beyond one’s control. These range from head-on collisions with Armco barriers to minute details like an unpredictable clutch and resultant torque, all of which have given Hamilton sleepless nights.

At Monza, he got off to a slow start and lost the race despite taking the pole position. Falling back to sixth at the first corner, Hamilton could only finish second in the Italian GP as Nico Rosberg won the race and cut the championship lead to tw points.

It isn’t the first time this has happened in 2016. Hamilton has been on pole in seven races, and only twice, in Austria and Britain (owing to a wet start), was he still in the lead at the first corner. Even Rosberg has had slow getaways, and this problem has afflicted both Mercedes cars, which other cars have taken advantage of at the start. And now, with the championship getting ever tighter, it is a real possibility that the title fight could be decided on something like the performance of a clutch.

And the clutch too

On Thursday, Hamilton declared in Singapore, “You’re not allowed to have certain feedback you were allowed before, in terms of clutch temperatures (owing to the rule changes), so you don’t have that. Sometimes you arrive and it gives you not enough torque, sometimes it gives you too much torque and you’re none the wiser. You don’t know if it’s going to give you more or less.”

“I don’t specifically like it or dislike it, it is what it is. I would prefer my clutch not to have those inconsistencies. But that's not going to change anytime soon. If you gauge my season, then the championship may be lost through bad starts, as I lost a lot of races I started from pole position right at the start. You do the work all through the weekend and then those two seconds have determined some of the races,” he added.

Is Mercedes even bothered?

Clearly, the three-time champion has spoken with the Mercedes management, but a solution hasn’t emerged – which is surprising given the vast resources the team has thrown at winning in F1. There is a school of thought here that they would have found a solution by now, if another driver or team were chasing them in the title fight. Since the drivers’ championship is between Rosberg and Hamilton, in turn allowing them an easy lead in the constructors’, Mercedes is virtually assured of both the individual and the team titles. So, maybe it’s taking its own sweet time to solve the problem.

But this puts Hamilton’s insecurity with his slender lead obvious. His teammate has made a brilliant start to the second half of the season, winning in both Belgium and Italy, reducing the gap from 19 points. It has put quite some pressure on the two-time defending champion, for the German usually makes slow starts after the summer break, which allowed Hamilton to run away with the title in both 2014 and 2015. This time around, it is a concentrated effort from Rosberg to not let the same thing happen.

Additionally, it puts Mercedes’s performance in Singapore into sharp focus. Last year, this was the one track where they were palpably behind both Ferrari and Red Bull, as Sebastian Vettel won an easy race. This year, Hamilton and Rosberg seemed divided in their opinion on whether the team could correct this anomaly. Friday practice revealed some interesting pointers.

Red Bull and Ferrari were quicker in the first practice session, but as the circuit grew more responsive in the evening and the teams settled down into their long runs, Rosberg topped the time sheets in second practice. It showed that the problems from last year have been comprehended, even if the margins between the three teams remain too close for comfort, pointing to an intriguing race.

Hamilton, meanwhile, was forced to abandon his second practice session early owing to a hydraulics problem. It was a marker of the season he has had – plagued by mechanical issues, but quick and confident when it all works, which is reflected in his points tally.

“At one point in time I was behind by 43 points. So it was good to go into the break with a lead of 19 points. The last two races haven’t gone my way, but I still have a narrow lead of two points. So that’s good,” he said with a faint smile when asked about Rosberg’s building momentum.

With so many ifs and buts ruling this race weekend, you have to wonder whether the championship battle might not look significantly different on Sunday night, after the Singapore GP has been run under lights.