Hamilton believes there is" more performance in the car"

Ahead of this weekend's United States Grand Prix, seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton sounded an optimistic note, suggesting that Ferrari might have found ways to unlock more performance from its troublesome SF-25 in Texas.

Ferrari endured a tough weekend last time out at Singapore as the Scuderia's struggled for pace in qualifying conditions before encountering brake issues in the race on Sunday.

Starting from sixth on the grid, Hamilton was overtaken by Charles Leclerc at the start into the first corner, and spent the majority of the race in P7. However, Ferrari called him in for an unplanned second pit stop to switch to a fresh set of red-walled soft tyres.

The seven-time world champion quickly set the timing screens alight, going over two seconds faster than Leclerc and Kimi Antonelli, who were his main rivals at the Marina Bay Circuit.

When Hamilton closed in on Leclerc, the Monegasque let him by, so the Briton could launch an attack on the driver, who replaced him at Mercedes. However, Hamilton suffered a sudden brake issue into Turn 17 which he could only manage on the last two laps by almost avoiding using the brakes.

Hamilton still finished the encounter in P7, but he crossed the finish line just four-tenths ahead of Aston Martin rival Fernando Alonso. The Briton was later penalized for exceeding the track limits on four occasions which saw him drop a place behind Alonso.

Speaking ahead of this weekend's United States Grand Prix, Hamilton was asked to reveal how hard it was to bring the car home safely due to the reliability issues.

"Yeah, the last few laps were definitely nerve-wracking. I’ve finished races before with three tyres, and now I’ve finished one with three brakes.

"Not something I want to experience again. I could stop the car, but in those scenarios, the pedal just went straight to the floor. So I had no choice but to go onto those exit roads—I wouldn’t have made the corner otherwise. The FIA penalty was fine. Doesn’t really make a big difference to me anyway."

Asked about his expectations coming into the weekend, Hamilton noted that he wants to achieve further improvements at Texas, suggesting that Ferrari might have found some areas to further unlock performance from its SF-25.

"Expectations—naturally, I never have expectations except that we give it our all and we continue to improve. There are lots of positives to take from every weekend, and lots of areas we can improve on.

"We spent time after the last race going through areas we can improve on, and I really think this weekend we can take a step forward in extracting more from the car that we have.

"We've not moved the car forwards in terms of performance, but there is more performance in the car. If we execute a little better, I think we can extract more. So that’s the goal."