Hamilton blames 12-click front wing error for missing US GP podium in Ferrari debut season

Lewis Hamilton has attributed his fourth-place finish at the United States Grand Prix to a Ferrari setup miscalculation that left his front wing 12 clicks too low for most of the race, producing the heavy understeer that separated him from podium contention at the Circuit of the Americas.

The seven-time world champion started fifth and was immediately hampered in the opening two stints, unable to match the pace of team-mate Charles Leclerc as the leading group pulled clear. Hamilton traced the problem back to Friday practice, where he believes Ferrari went in the wrong direction across the two sessions before recovering some ground ahead of qualifying.

“I was lacking pace in the first two stints basically,” Hamilton said. “I just couldn’t turn the car. And I think ultimately it all kind of started on Friday. Wrong set-up really for P1 and then went the wrong direction in P2.”

He explained that a subtle difference in wing configuration between his car and Leclerc’s proved decisive once the race began. “When you do the lap to the grid it feels like the car is good and then as soon as the race starts massive washout and understeer and I couldn’t do anything about it, so they just pulled away. I lost those eight seconds and that’s really why I didn’t get that position in the end.”

Ferrari added front wing at each of Hamilton’s two pitstops — four clicks at the first stop, four more at the second — yet he still finished the race four clicks short of the level he needed. “It’s crazy, to be 12 clicks down,” he said. “We really need to look at how we get into that point.”

Hamilton pointed to Leclerc’s long run in second practice on the higher-downforce setup as a key factor, suggesting his team-mate arrived at the race with a clearer picture of the correct balance. Once his car finally came alive in the final stint, Hamilton matched the pace of the drivers ahead and said he would “for sure” have been on the podium with the correct setup from the start.

Tyre strategy also played against him. Hamilton opted for two sets of medium tyres, only for the hard compound to prove the fastest option in race conditions. That left him starting his opening stint on a used set of softs — a disadvantage he estimated cost him roughly two seconds of race time compared with the fresh rubber on the cars around him.