Lewis Hamilton provided details on what exactly went wrong on his last lap of the United States Grand Prix, although he still managed to finish in fourth place.
Scuderia Ferrari managed to turn their weekend around after suffering reliability issues in practice followed by a poor Sprint qualifying performance.
Things improved the next day, as the two SF-25 cars qualified in third and fifth, with Charles Leclerc and Hamilton respectively behind the wheels.
Starting on the third row of the grid, the seven-time World Champion got off to a good start by sailing past the Mercedes of George Russell on the opening lap. He then settled into a rhythm, completing 32 laps before diving into the pits for a fresh set of tyres.
A Late Scare
While Hamilton had remained close behind McLaren's Lando Norris in the opening phases, his hopes of finishing on the podium slowly dwindled as the latter closed in on Leclerc in an ensuing battle for P2.
Everything pointed to a comfortable fourth-place finish for the Briton until the very last lap, when a sudden change in his Ferrari's handling characteristics threatened to derail what was a solid Sunday race.
Speaking to media after the 56-lap event, Hamilton explained what he felt behind the wheel on the final tour.
He said: "I went into Turn 5 and it felt like I hit something.
"All of a sudden, I had massive understeer, and I thought that I had a puncture. I braked into Turn 11, and the thing wouldn’t stop," Hamilton exclaimed.
Luckily, the 40-year-old was far enough ahead of the other McLaren of Oscar Piastri to keep hold of P4 at the chequered flag. However, one more lap and Hamilton would have undoubtedly lost a position; the gap between him and Piastri was just over a second by the end.
The Ferrari driver admitted that he was worried he would lose out to Piastri in the dying moments of the Grand Prix.
He continued: "I was like ‘Geez, what’s going on?’ Somehow, I managed to hold it on in the last few corners, but I had huge understeer.
"I thought the front wing was broken or something happened with the tyre. It was close with Piastri on the last lap."
A Step In The Right Direction
Despite the heart-in-mouth moment on the final lap, Hamilton expressed delight at the progress that he and Ferrari made over the course of the weekend to secure valuable points.
With Leclerc claiming a podium finish, Ferrari are just 26 points behind Mercedes in the battle for second in the Constructors' Standings. Red Bull are only seven points behind the Maranello-based outfit.
The British driver added: "Definitely a trend moving forward, going in the right direction, definitely feeling better in the car.
"I'll definitely do a deep dive in these next couple days, try and figure out how we can extract more from the car, get the car in a slightly better place," concluded Hamilton.
At the end of the day, Hamilton's P4 ties his best result since he joined Ferrari. But historically, the seven-time world champion became in Austin the first driver in F1 history to smash through the 5,000-point barrier.
Not bad for a Sunday spent mostly staring at the back end of "the other red car."
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