Hamilton set a solid opening pace as he passed through the first intermediate split 33 seconds down on stage-winner Remi Cavangna's time and the 25-year-old continued to battle to the line, stopping the clock in a time of 22 minutes and 55 seconds.
It was then a case of waiting for the final riders to finish to see how the general classification would shake out, with Geraint Thomas doing enough to take the overall title, while Hamilton held onto eighth overall.
“I’m pretty happy with where I’m at," said Hamilton. "I came into this race a little bit concerned after not going so well at Liege and it took a while before we hit the mountains and we hit the mountains yesterday and to end up in the top-10, I’m pretty happy.
"That’s three WorldTour week-long races in the top-10 in-a-row now, so it shows that I’m able to progress as a GC rider."
The 25-year-old from Ararat produced a combative performance to propel his way to fourth at Paris-Nice, before finishing tenth at the Volta a Catalunya and topping it off with eighth in the Swiss WorldTour race.
"All three of the week-long races I’ve done have been very different in their own right and Romandie involved a little bit more time trialling than climbing, Paris-Nice obviously has its own difficulties and Catalunya was very climbing based," said Hamilton. "So to finish top-10 in all of them show consistency and I’m on the path that I want to be on to pull off a big result. Top-10 is not a win, so I’d like to bag something soon, but it’s a good progression.”
Hamilton will be riding the Tour de Suisse ahead of a likely Tour de France berth, which would be a first for the general classification prospect.
The 2021 Tour de Romandie was a good hunting ground for Australians, with Ben O'Connor (AG2R-Citroen) finishing sixth and Richie Porte (INEOS Grenadiers) second overall.
