Lewis Hamilton has admitted he now needs to win all six remaining grands prix to give himself a chance of overhauling Fernando Alonso for the world title.
Briton admits Singapore GP retirement was the last thing McLaren needed after his title bid took a huge knock
Lewis Hamilton has vowed not to give up in his pursuit of this year's World Championship but admits he now needs to win all six remaining grands prix to have a chance of the title.
Although never leading by more than a handful of seconds from Sebastian Vettel through the opening stages of Sunday's night race in Singapore, Hamilton had appeared to have the race under control and be on course for his second straight win and McLaren's fourth in succession.
But on the start/finish straight entering lap 23, Hamilton suddenly started struggling to engage a gear and his MP4-27 promptly started coasting before going into neutral, forcing Hamilton to pull down an escape road and hand the lead - and ultimate race victory - to Vettel.
With Alonso finishing third, Hamilton's deficit to the Ferrari driver has grown by 15 points to 52 points - with only a maximum of 150 points still up for grabs.
"I was [hugely disappointed] when I got out of the car, but that's motor racing," Hamilton told
Sky Sports F1's Natalie Pinkham.
"We had the pace this weekend, it was quite easy in the position we were in so I think it would have been a nice result for us. Nonetheless, we've got more races to go."
Given Alonso's already large pre-race advantage, Hamilton acknowledged another retirement was the last thing he needed - but remained adamant that his fight isn't finished with six races remaining.
"We really couldn't afford today but it is what it is but the good thing is we have good pace and we've got to go and try and win the next few races," he said.
"I'll never give up."
Speaking to newspaper reports later on, he gave an even clearer assessment of what he had to do between now and Brazil: "I have no doubt with this car we can fight. But we need to win every race from now on."
His McLaren team boss, Martin Whitmarsh, gave a similarly resolute response to the situation to
Sky Sports F1.
"Now's the time when you have to show your strength as a team and a racing driver to say 'it's happened, I don't like it but I've got to move on'," he said.
"'Six races, quick car and I'm going to try now and score 150 points', and that's what we're going to try to do."
Given McLaren went into the weekend striking a cautious note about their chances this weekend, in expectation of a step forward from Red Bull and Ferrari, Whitmarsh admits that had they managed to leave the city-state with a win it would have been a massive fillip for their championship push. Nonetheless the McLaren chief is sure they will continue to rise to the mounting challenge.
"It would have been a powerful one and frankly we thought we were going to come out of here really on the attack and closing in on the prey. But that's motor racing," Whitmarsh said.
"You've got to say Fernando's pretty good at bringing the car home and scoring points whatever the circumstance, and Sebastian did a great job as well today. So congratulations to both of them, they're not going to make it easy for us to win anything, but that's how it should be. It's the World Championship, it's the pinnacle of motorsport.
"We've got to be fighting, we've got to be at our best and if things like that happen then it's our fault, we accept it, we learn from it and bounce back. We're a resilient lot."
Meanwhile, speaking about the sequence of events prior to his race retirement, Hamilton said he had become aware several laps before that his gear shifts were suddenly become more difficult and that, despite hopes from the pit-wall that the issue wouldn't prove terminal, the failure soon overwhelmed the car.
"We have this this thing in our car when you shift, a seamless gear shift," he explained.
"It's such a smooth gearshift but eventually I lost what we call E-shifts and basically then it becomes quite an aggressive shift.
"So I told the team we lost the E-shifts and they said I should be able to see it to the end of the race. But then I lost third gear and then all the gears went. So it was a gearbox failure for sure."
