Lewis Hamilton would have been desperate to start life at Ferrari on the front foot this season.
The Australian Grand Prix has witnessed Lewis Hamilton win twice and take pole position on eight occasions.
However, Hamilton had his work cut out in his brand-new Ferrari on Sunday as he just squeezed into the points after a topsy-turvy race.
Hamilton is still getting used to his new car and admitted after qualifying that the Grand Prix was going to be a bit of a lottery considering he had never driven the SF-25 in the rain.
It was a difficult race for the seven-time world champion as he ran in P8 for a long time, struggling to get past Alex Albon’s Williams.
Hamilton had some trouble on the team radio throughout the weekend and his communication with Riccardo Adami will need to improve quickly.
Then, the turning point came towards the end of the race when the final rain shower arrived at Albert Park.
Hamilton and Ferrari got caught out and pitted both drivers too late, costing their new star and Charles Leclerc some precious points.
Oscar Piastri pulled off a daring move on Hamilton on the final lap in his superior McLaren to top off a frustrating debut for the 40-year-old.
Lewis Hamilton sends message to Ferrari fans after disappointing Australian Grand Prix
Hamilton has enjoyed huge support from Ferrari’s fans with the Tifosi immediately embracing their latest champion.
However, after promising signs from testing, it was clear that the Australian Grand Prix wasn’t going to go to plan for either driver.
Hamilton took to Instagram after the race to send a message to Ferrari’s fans and said: “A real rollercoaster. Definitely not what we had hoped for, but I’m grateful to get my first race done.
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“Now we build onwards and upwards. We have a lot of work to do, and we’ll keep pushing to make improvements and bring better results.
“There’s a lot of potential in the car, now we do the work to unlock it. Grazie, on to the next”
Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari have obvious areas of improvement after the Australian Grand Prix
While Hamilton and Ferrari would have expected a lot more from their first race of 2025, there are some obvious areas of improvement they can address quite quickly.
Firstly, both drivers didn’t seem happy with their radio communications and while it’s going to take time for Hamilton and Adami to learn what the other needs, Leclerc shouldn’t have that excuse with his race engineer.
Team principal Frederic Vasseur will also be upset with how they handled their strategy calls during the race.
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If both drivers had come into the pits just one lap earlier for their final stop, they would have at least doubled their points tally.
F1 team bosses thought Ferrari were hiding some pace and it’ll be interesting to see how they react when they arrive in China for the next race.
It’s a circuit where Hamilton has traditionally performed well and was on the podium during last year’s Sprint Race.
Martin Brundle doesn’t think Hamilton will enjoy watching parts of the race back, but there are certainly some positives to take, especially when so many drivers crashed into the barriers on their debuts for their new teams.
