Ferrari acts on Lewis Hamilton's advice leading to jump in performance at US GP

Lewis Hamilton says Ferrari has adopted his proposed process changes

Lewis Hamilton has confirmed that Ferrari has made changes after his comments over the Singapore Grand Prix when he promised "background talks" would take place. With the Scuderia putting these into practice for the United States Grand Prix weekend, it paid off with a cleaner session and better one-lap performance at the Circuit of The Americas.

After a mixed day, Hamilton qualified fifth for Sunday's grand prix, just four tenths behind polesitter Max Verstappen.

“We made some improvements in terms of our processes going into this qualifying session,” Hamilton said. “We tried something different and it really, really worked, so I’m really proud of the team for being open and making the changes.”

The seven-time champion had previously commented on the processes in need of improvement at the Italian outfit, including its approach to releasing its cars and tyre preparation.

Asked what had been changed this weekend, Hamilton outlined the adjustments that had been made.

“It’s just how we execute the session. It’s how we communicate. 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 just altogether.”

Reflecting on his qualifying performance, he complained of understeer around the uneven circuit.

“Set-up-wise, I had a big oversteer yesterday throughout 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 or something like that.

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari

Photo by: Simon Galloway / LAT Images via Getty Images

“It wasn’t until the last run that I had the front wing, but you kind of needed that in the first run so you could get that confidence in the car.”

Hamilton was able to overtake his team-mate Charles Leclerc when the Monegasque made a mistake and left the track briefly. While the Briton capitalised on the error, he believes he wouldn't have been able to make a move if Leclerc hadn't tripped up.

“I had a lot of understeer in the race, so highly unlikely I would have been able to get close and overtake in the race. Given that we’re both on the same tyre, I think he had a lot more front wing than me, so highly unlikely. But he made the mistake at the end of the day and I was able to capitalise [on] it.”

Despite this, the former Mercedes driver is optimistic for Sunday.

"I definitely learned a bit more about where to put the car. Just in general today, I learned a bit more about where to put the car. Overall, I’ve been pretty happy throughout the weekend.”