Lewis Hamilton baffled by last-lap incident with rival ‘so close to coming past’

Lewis Hamilton was unsure what caused a last-lap drop in pace at the United States Grand Prix on Sunday as he wrestled his car to the finish line in fourth place.

Hamilton managed to finish fourth ahead of a rapidly-approaching Oscar Piastri, with the seven-time World Champion having suffered “huge understeer” on the final lap in Austin, explaining that he “felt like I hit something” on the way.

Lewis Hamilton asks ‘what’s going on?’ after US GP speed loss

Hamilton was heard frantically reporting a potential puncture on the last lap in the United States, but he carried on driving to the line with his not-quite-right SF-25.

The seven-time World Champion was able to bring home a fourth-place finish, which in turn made him the first driver in Formula 1 history to surpass 5,000 career points.

After the race, the Ferrari driver was still none the wiser as to what caused his car to go off-kilter, with Piastri almost overtaking him towards the line.

When asked about the issue was that he had on the final lap, Hamilton told PlanetF1.com and others in Austin: “I’m not really sure. I went into Turn 5, and it felt like I hit something, and all of a sudden, I had massive understeer.

“I thought that I had a puncture, so I braked into Turn 11, the thing wouldn’t stop, and I was like, ‘Geez, what’s going on?’

“Somehow, I managed to hold on in the last few corners. I had huge understeer, I thought the front wing was broken or that something happened with the tyre, it was so close to Piastri coming past.”

More on the United States Grand Prix weekend

👉 2025 United States Grand Prix results (Circuit of The Americas)

👉 F1 LIVE: All the action as it happened from the United States Grand Prix

On his race as a whole, though, Hamilton finished one place behind teammate Charles Leclerc as Ferrari showed an improved turn of pace in race trim in Austin.

While a longer first stint saw Leclerc able to open up a gap on his Ferrari colleague, Hamilton was pleased with how his afternoon’s work panned out overall.

“Yeah, it definitely felt better today,” Hamilton said.

“I think after P1, we kind of went somehow the wrong way setup-wise, and just didn’t have the pace that I had in P1 for the rest of the weekend.

“But yeah, there are lots of positives to take from today. Strategy left me out, I ended up 10 seconds behind [Leclerc], so it was a bit frustrating in that respect, but great points for the team.”

Hamilton equalled his best Grand Prix result for Ferrari in fourth, adding that his first podium with the Scuderia was “so close, but still so far”, but he remains positive about the current direction of travel heading towards the final five rounds of the season.

“Definitely a trend moving forwards, going in right direction,” he added.

“I’m definitely feeling better in the car, and I’m definitely going to deep dive in these next couple of days, try and figure out how I can extract more performance in the car, get the car in a slightly better place. But overall, pretty decent. The team did a great job today.”

Additional reporting by Elizabeth Blackstock

Read next: Max Verstappen finally admits ‘the chance is there’ for late title run