Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari debut didn’t go to plan after he finished 10th and struggled to keep up with his title-contending rivals in Melbourne.
Ferrari were expected to be in the fight for the drivers’ championship before the start of testing, but they have struggled so far this year.
Hamilton qualified eighth at the Australian Grand Prix and watched on as his ex-Mercedes teammate George Russell managed fourth.
New teammate Charles Leclerc beat him too and lined up seventh for the race. Things did improve on Sunday, as he led his first laps for the Scuderia following a bold, but poor strategy call.
After years of frustration with the Silver Arrows, Hamilton has already made one Ferrari ‘adjustment’ that he was afraid to do with his old team.
Marc Priestley noticed Hamilton’s ‘interesting’ radio messages in his first race. He thinks that he was very polite to new engineer Riccardo Adami.
READ MORE: Lewis Hamilton left ‘disappointed’ in Ferrari for one reason after frustrating Australian Grand Prix debut
Peter Windsor ‘can’t believe’ Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari language issue
Hamilton’s struggles during his Formula 1 debut for Ferrari could be blamed on a few factors. Peter Windsor has picked out one issue that he was particularly surprised by.
“It sounded to me that Lewis was getting agitated at his engineer in race one,” he said. “And if you say it’s a language issue why didn’t he sort it out in the Bahrain test?
“Or the meetings they have had in Maranello all this time? I can’t believe there is a language issue now they haven’t sorted and they only discovered it in the middle of the Australian GP.”
Now that both sides of the party have experienced a race scenario together, the upcoming Chinese Grand Prix should be a lot easier.
There is definitely some work to do at Ferrari in Shanghai. They will not be content with having the fourth-fastest car.
READ MORE: Peter Windsor says Lewis Hamilton being beaten by 105-race driver was ’embarrassing’ on his Ferrari F1 debut
How fast might Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari be at the Japanese Grand Prix?
The upcoming Chinese Grand Prix was a good track for Ferrari last year. They finished fourth and fifth behind the dominant Red Bull cars.
With Red Bull not even close to being in a similar position, the teams should be a lot closer at the front this weekend. There may even be a fight for victory on the cards.
There’s very little chance that Hamilton finishes just 10th again. He hates losing and will have been studying hard since Sunday’s race to try and find a solution.
Within the data, there will have been a lot to learn from and use to make them quicker in both qualifying and the race. They just have to translate it into on-track performance now.
The seven-time champion was two-tenths behind Leclerc in Melbourne but may struggle to maintain that gap at a track where the driver makes an even bigger difference.
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