Hamilton is "finally feeling like I’m on top of the car" after a series of encouraging weekends

On the back of a series of more encouraging weekends, Ferrari's seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton claimed that he is "finally feeling like I’m on top of the car."

Following a tough opening day at the United States Grand Prix, Ferrari bounced back on Saturday to claim a fourth and fifth place in the Austin F1 Sprint before Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton delivered a superb job to secure P3 and P5 for the race itself.

The Monegasque took a gamble in the race, becoming the only driver in the top top 15 to start on the soft tyre. That risk paid off, as he made his way past McLaren rival Lando Norris through Turn 1.

Although Leclerc was expected to struggle on his red-walled tyres, he managed to keep his soft tyres alive. He made his sole pit stop relatively early and kept Norris behind, but he eventually lost out to the Briton in the dying stages of the race. He still managed to secure his first podium finish since Belgium.

His team-mate Lewis Hamilton opted for the conventional strategy, starting on the mediums. He ran fourth for most of the race. Although he managed to stay close to Norris and Leclerc in the early part of the race, he lost valuable time during the laps directly ahead of his pit stop, which meant he had to settle for fourth place.

Reflecting on his strong weekend, Hamilton said: "It’s been a productive Sunday overall. Today’s race was a strong result for the team and we gained some good points.

"My first stint was encouraging, and I was in the fight for third, but after my pit stop the gap to the top three became too difficult to close," he continued.

On the back of a disappointing first half of the season, Hamilton appeared to have found a remedy for his issues with Ferrari's SF25 through the summer races, and his Austin weekend was a further testament to the progress in his brand-new environment.

"As a whole, the weekend has been a positive one. It showed the progress we’re making as a team and confirmed there’s still more potential to unlock in the SF-25. Thank you to all the fans here, who brought incredible energy all weekend."

“I’m finally feeling like I’m on top of the car,” said Hamilton. “I think we still have some improvements we could make. We can definitely extract more, particularly on my side, because Qualifying wasn’t as good as I had hoped and the start wasn’t great.

“There are always areas to improve, but it’s positive going into the next race, so I hope we can have an even better weekend," concluded the Briton.