Hamilton reveals "subtle difference" between his Ferrari and Leclerc's after tough US GP
Photo: Race Pictures
Kieran is a freelance Formula 1 journalist for GPblog, covering breaking news, live race blogs and feature content across the F1 calendar. An NQJ-qualified journalist with more than a decade of experience, he has previously written for publications including MailOnline, the Manchester Evening News and the Eastern Daily Press.
Lewis Hamilton says a balance problem left him unable to turn the car during the first two stints of the United States Grand Prix, as he highlighted a "subtle difference" between his and Charles Leclerc's car.
Leclerc finished second behind Kimi Antonelli, while Hamilton came home fourth. Hamilton said he had lacked pace early in the race as understeer made it difficult to keep up with the cars ahead.
“I was just lacking pace in the first two stints, basically I just couldn’t turn the car,” he said. “As soon as the race starts, I understeer and I couldn’t do anything about it. They just pulled away.”
Hamilton traced the issue back to Ferrari’s setup work across the weekend. He said the team had started in the wrong direction in FP1 and went further in the wrong direction in FP2, before making progress by the third practice session, but a subtle difference in the cars remained.
“There’s a subtle difference between Charles and me and our cars in the race, and it’s mostly to do with flap, how much wing you put in,” Hamilton explained. “I think we’ve just been under-hitting it. We continuously under-hit it for some reason.”
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Hamilton on how he can get much better results
Hamilton said he began to find a better balance during the final stint, but by then he had lost too much ground to challenge the leaders.
“If I’d had the balance that I need—even if I’d just had the balance of the last stint—I would have been right in the fight all the way to the end,” he said.
The Ferrari driver believes resolving the issue could help him achieve better results in the remaining races.
“If I can really get on top of this balance issue that I have, I think we can get much better results,” Hamilton added.
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