Lewis Hamilton eyes “lots of improvement” despite US GP sprint race recovery

Lewis Hamilton has stressed the need for Ferrari to find “lots of improvement” despite an impressive recovery in the sprint race at the United States Grand Prix.

Hamilton made up four places in the 19-lap sprint race at the Circuit of the Americas.

The two Ferraris capitalised on a chaotic first corner, which saw both McLarens retire on the opening lap.

Hamilton initially lost out to teammate Charles Leclerc before executing an aggressive overtake at Turn 12.

He was pleased that the deficit to Max Verstappen “wasn’t as big” as it had been in qualifying.

However, Hamilton is aware that Ferrari need to make progress ahead of qualifying for the main Grand Prix.

Reflecting on the sprint, Hamilton told Sky Sports: “It was the same as it was in qualifying but the pace was decent.

“It felt a little bit in race trim than it did in qualifying. The delta wasn’t as big to everyone around. I managed to avoid the drama at Turn 1, just. I didn’t position my car particularly well.

“I saw Alonso on the inside so I went a bit to the right and left the door open to Charles. Lots of improvement is still to be made.

“Otherwise the start was good. A shame I couldn’t get close to get in the top three but I am hoping for a better qualifying today. Fingers crossed.”

Leclerc notes ‘better feeling’

While Leclerc finished behind his teammate, he was encouraged by the handling of his Ferrari.

Leclerc looked out of sorts in sprint qualifying, narrowly making it into SQ2.

He ran ahead of Hamilton before an error during the opening sequence of corners on Lap 9, running wide.

Giving his view on the sprint, Leclerc said: “It’s better that way than any other cars. Honestly, the feeling was much better today. I unfortunately did a big mistake and nearly ended up in the wall in Turn 5, 6 and Lewis overtook me right after.

“The pace was pretty good after that. It was difficult to recover the pace after that mistake but the feeling was much better today.

“That is a good thing but starting from P10 without the things that happened at the start, it would have been a very difficult race for us to come back to where we ended up. We need to focus on qualifying and do a better job.”