Lewis Hamilton has claimed that Ferrari is “going in the right direction” as he aims to build on the “positives” he captured from Formula 1‘s United States Grand Prix.
The Sprint weekend at the Circuit of the Americas turned out to be a tale of two halves for the Italian marque and Hamilton.
After a promising opening hour in Free Practice on Friday, the seven-time F1 Champion’s pace seemingly vanished during Sprint Qualifying as he finished in eighth place.
That said, a Safety Car-ridden Sprint Race saw the Briton take fourth at the chequered flag, which included an aggressive pass on Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc.
He carried this momentum into the main Race on Sunday, finishing fourth after posting a Q3 lap good enough for the third row, eeking out a tenth more than his fastest SQ3 time.
Speaking about his race, Hamilton revealed that Ferrari was quick to make some adjustments after getting the set-up “wrong” for the Sprint events.
“Yeah, it definitely felt better,” he told media including Motorsport Week.
“Today, I think we went, after P1, we kind of went somehow the wrong way in setup-wise and just didn’t have the pace that I had in P1 for the rest of the weekend.
19 races into his Ferrari career, Hamilton is yet to stand on the podium. In Austin, he rued the pit wall’s strategy calls that meant he missed out on that opportunity once again.
“But, yeah, there’s lots of positives to take from today. The strategy left me out,” he recounted.
“I ended up 10 seconds behind. So, it was a bit frustrating in that respect, but great points for the team.
But Hamilton insisted that he believes that he is moving forward with the team in the right direction as he plans to deconstruct the positive “trend” he has witnessed so far.
“Definitely a trend. Moving forward, it’s going in the right direction,” he explained.
“I’m definitely feeling better in the car.
“I’ll definitely do a deep dive in these next couple of days to try and figure out how I can extract more performance from the car and get the car in a slightly better place.
“But overall, pretty decent. The team did a great job today.”
Hamilton sets final objective for debut Ferrari season
Having missed out on the Constructors’ title to McLaren last season, many expected Hamilton to help banish Ferrari’s title drought that has persisted since 2008.
While those ambitions have quickly withered away, Hamilton still wants to end the season on a high, with the Briton setting his sights on Ferrari retaining second.
“Just if I can finish there or even get a podium at some point. Just finishing ahead of the Mercedes is our goal,” he asserted.
“If I can help the team secure second in the constructors, that would be a good end to the year.”
Ferrari currently trails Mercedes by just seven points. However, Hamilton refused to commit that jumping the German marque was going to be a walk in the park.
“It’s really difficult. On one weekend, Mercedes won the last race,” he added.
“And then this race, they were behind us. So it’s really, really difficult to know why that is and why there are swings and roundabouts. But we really just hope that our car is better next week.”
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