Lewis Hamilton confirmed that Ferrari made some long-awaited ‘improvements’ to their processes during qualifying for the United States Grand Prix. The Scuderia had both cars inside the top five in a strong Saturday outing at the Circuit of the Americas.
This has been a frustrating season for Hamilton and Ferrari. The Brit is still waiting for his first podium finish with his new squad, and Fred Vasseur’s outfit has started to lag behind rivals McLaren, Red Bull and Mercedes over the past couple of months.
Adding insult to Ferrari’s injury has been a series of procedural errors and inefficiencies, which have left Hamilton and team-mate Charles Leclerc frustrated throughout the campaign. However, the seven-time world champion shared that the Prancing Horse has taken a step in the right direction in Austin.
“We made some improvements in terms of our processes going into this qualifying session,” he revealed on Saturday. “We tried something different and it really, really worked, so I’m really proud of the team for being open and making the changes.”
Probed for more details, he added: “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 altogether.”
At the top of the timing screens, reigning world champion Max Verstappen scored his seventh pole position of the season by a margin of nearly three-tenths of a second. Still, behind the Dutchman, the rest of the frontrunners were evenly matched.
“I definitely had that tenth within the lap,” Hamilton said in review, ruing a missed opportunity to start on the front row instead of fifth. “Set-up-wise, I had a big oversteer yesterday throughout [sprint] qualifying, which made it really difficult.
“In this session, I started with massive understeer, so I was basically trying to dial that out. It wasn’t until the last run I had the [right] front wing [set-up], but you kind of needed that in the first run so you could get that confidence in the car.”
Away from the racetrack, Ferrari have been at the centre of a whirlwind of rumours and speculation surrounding the future of team principal Vasseur. Despite signing a new contract earlier this summer, the Frenchman’s job is reportedly at risk, with the Daily Mail citing that Christian Horner has engaged in talks with the legendary Italian constructor.
