Sebastian Vettel believes Ferrari should have been a lot closer to Lewis Hamilton after finishing six-tenths off the pace in qualifying for the Singapore GP.

As the championship leader produced a stunning Q3 lap to not only smash the circuit record but prove Mercedes have cured most of the issues that impacted them in recent years, the German had to settle for third on the grid after going in as the strong favourite.

“Obviously, the gap if you look at it is a surprise but I don’t think it reflects the true performance,” Vettel said after the session. “I think we should have done better. We had the ingredients and we should have put it together. 

"P3 is not a disaster so I am not completely upset but for sure we wanted to get pole," he added. "It was definitely there to grasp but the way qualifying happened, obviously, it wasn’t anymore.

“That is disappointing for now but tomorrow we turn the page and go racing.”

In a Q3 that bared some similarities to Melbourne at the start of the season, it was tyre preparation that appeared to be the key factor with Hamilton finding the absolute sweet spot to take pole by three-tenths over Max Verstappen.

“It is never ideal if you have a mini race on the out lap but there was a lot of cars always around so yeah,” Vettel said, referencing the traffic.

“I mean, you can’t blame it on that. We had two laps and both were not good enough so it is not what I wanted and not what we wanted today.”

Heading into Sunday and a race many consider a must-win, as he sits 30 points behind Hamilton, the 31-year-old made no predictions other than for a tough battle ahead.

“It is very close, across all sessions that everybody has been up top,” he said.

“We can’t expect miracles tomorrow because nobody has the pace to lap the others but overall it is good to have pace and we will see what we can do.”