Hamilton pleased to finish frustrating Ferrari debut

Lewis Hamilton admitted his much anticipated Ferrari debut went “a lot worse” than he expected at Melbourne.

As he adapted to his new and unfamiliar Ferrari, Hamilton was understandably a step behind teammate Charles Leclerc all weekend and struggled to rise from eighth on the grid as he was stuck behind Alex Albon’s Williams.

But the #44 still led a lap amid the rain-hit chaos before pitting for Intermediates and falling to eighth, only to be immediately overtaken by Leclerc.

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On the last lap the seven-time champion was also swooped around the outside by Oscar Piastri at the fast Turn 9, which ensured he only walked away with a solitary point in 10th.

Having spent an entire career driving with Mercedes engines and the previous 12 seasons the brand’s factory squad, the transition to Ferrari was always going to be a difficult one.

But Hamilton did not expect the SF-25 to be so difficult to drive.

It was very tricky and went a lot worse than I thought it would go,” Hamilton told Sky Sports F1. 

“The car was really, really hard to drive.

“For me, I’m just grateful I kept it out of the wall because that’s where it wanted to go most of the time.

“A lot to take from it and just getting acclimatised with the new power unit in the wet conditions.

“The settings it requires are different, and a different way of driving and a different set-up on the steering wheel.”

One of the bigger talking points was Hamilton’s interaction with new engineer Riccardo Adami after a long relationship with Pete Bennington, who introduced the famous “Hammer Time” phrase.

Despite his frustration at some calls in the cockpit , he actually defended his new engineer at the start of their relationship.

“I think Riccardo did a really good job. We’re learning about each other bit by bit,” he said.

“After this we’ll download, we’ll go through all the comments – things I said and vice versa.

“Generally, I’m not one that likes a lot of information in-race, unless I ask for it. He did his best today and we’ll move forward.”

With Leclerc also clearly annoyed at times and being eighth, Ferrari finds itself behind Sauber in the constructors title chase after being a close second last year.

Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur said the team will only improve from here.

“It’s the first race, the first time that we have to communicate between the pit wall and the car,” he said.

“I thought that we can do a better job and to know each other a bit more. For sure it was not a clean one at all, but the strategy was difficult.

“We need to find a better way to communicate between the car and the pit wall, but we will learn from race one and it’s not an issue.”

Image: Peter Norton

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