Hamilton: I’m finally feeling I’m on top of the car

Hamilton has been showing recent signs of improvement following his difficult start to life as a Ferrari driver and has been running closer to teammate Charles Leclerc, who has had the upper hand so far in the intra-team battle between the pair.

Ferrari's form over the weekend in Austin was fluctuating, as they struggled on Saturday while showing improvement on Sunday.

Hamilton outqualified Leclerc for the Sprint Race and finished ahead of him as well in fourth, the latter finishing fifth.

“I’m finally feeling like I’m on top of the car,” the seven-time Formula 1 Champion said. “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," Hamilton maintained.

As for the Grand Prix, Leclerc managed to turn the tables on Hamilton, outqualifying him and also finishing ahead on the podium while the Briton was good for fourth.

But Hamilton showed decent pace throughout the race, especially in the opening stint when he was on Medium tyres when he even managed to overtake Leclerc, who had started on Softs, before the pit stops restored the previous order.

But Hamilton is seeing the glass half full; he added: "We can definitely take a lot of positives. Just the way we have extracted points this weekend—given we haven’t upgraded the car, we are still somehow just there or thereabouts.

“I got a bad start, managed to still get a good Turn 1, which then recovered the start. I was kind of in the fight at the beginning and got Charles before his stop but lost a bit of time there to Lando.

"After my stop, I came out so far behind, so the strategy wasn't ideal, but a perfect result in terms of points for the team," he concluded.

(Reporting by Agnes Carlier)