Lewis Hamilton has revealed that a change in Ferrari’s approach to qualifying at the Formula 1 United States Grand Prix helped both cars finish inside the top five.
Hamilton produced one of his strongest competitive qualifying sessions with Ferrari, lapping within a tenth of team-mate Charles Leclerc, who will line up in third.
The Briton had been vocal about Ferrari’s tactics costing him grid position in Singapore last time out, where he lamented tyre warm-up issues hindering his hopes.
But in comparison to what transpired at the Marina Bay Street Circuit, Hamilton and Leclerc tended to be among the first to take to the track during each segment.
Despite believing that he had the pace to get on the front row, Hamilton was buoyed that Ferrari had taken on board his criticism to deliver improved performance.
“I definitely had that tenth within the lap. We made some improvements in terms of our processes,” Hamilton told media including Motorsport Week.
“Going into this qualifying session, we tried something different and it really, really worked. So I’m really proud of the team for being open and making the changes.
“Set-up-wise, I had big oversteer yesterday throughout [Sprint] qualifying, which made it really difficult for us going off.
“In this session, I started with massive understeer, so I was basically trying to dial that out. I added like eight holes in the front wing.
“It wasn’t until the last run I had the front wing, but you kind of needed that in the first run so you can get that confidence in the back.”
Pressed to expand on the details behind the process changes he mentioned, Hamilton reiterated that Ferrari’s execution had improved compared to previous events.
“It’s just how we execute the session. It’s how we communicate,” he added.
“It’s the calm approach. It’s the timing that we go out. It’s the temperature of our tyres, all those sorts of things. We just executed it much better all together.”
Hamilton addresses opportunistic Sprint pass
Ferrari capitalised on the drama that ensued at the start of the Sprint Race to recover ground, with Hamilton pulling a pass on Leclerc to lead his team-mate in fourth.
“I had a lot of understeer in the race, so it was highly unlikely I would have been able to get close and overtake in the race.
“Given that we were both in the same tyre, I think he had a lot more front wing than me, so it was highly unlikely,” he recounted.
“But he made the mistake at the end of the day and I was able to capitalise.
“He did luck out at the start by getting past because I was in the middle of the crash.
“He kind of drove around it, so he was fortunate to have passed me in the first place. It’s quite difficult to overtake here.”
Hamilton also disclosed that he was able to utilise the learnings from the earlier race to adapt his set-up to improve his feeling with the SF-25 heading into qualifying.
“[I] definitely learnt about to where to put the car,” he disclosed.
“In general today, I’ve been happy throughout the weekend. I think qualifying I wasn’t as strong as I was there.
“As I said, I had massive understeer, I’ve just had too much lock and it’s killed the tyres.”
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