Lewis Hamilton bemoaned the quality of the information he received from his new team after finishing a disappointing 10th in the Australian Grand Prix.
After a solid pre-season test, hopes were high for Ferrari heading into the 2025 F1 season opener in Melbourne, but some questionable strategy from the pit wall, combined by some tetchy communications between driver and team, left Hamilton way down the order after a race that he briefly led.
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Speaking after the race, Hamilton said that his weekend turned out much tougher than he had expected.
“It’s very tricky, and went a lot worse than I thought that it would go,” he admitted.
“The car was really hard to drive today. So for me, I’m just grateful that I kept it out of the wall, because that’s really where it wanted to go most of the time.
“(There was) a lot to take from it. Just getting acclimatized to a new power unit in the wet conditions (and) all the settings that it requires – a different way of driving, a different setup on the steering wheel.”
While there’s an understandable bedding-in period taking place as Hamilton gets fully integrated with the team, and the team with him, but the seven-time world champion was left frustrated after receiving poor information from his team regarding the changeable weather conditions throughout the race.
The race started in wet conditions, but eventually the track started to dry out, with all of the drivers swapping their intermediate rain tires for slicks.
But when a second rain shower arrived mid-way through the race, Hamilton was told that it would only affect a small portion of the track, for a short period of time.
Neither proved to be the case, as much stronger rain arrived and affected most of the Albert Park circuit.
And with Hamilton staying out on slick tires on a wet track for much longer than his rivals, he ended up losing a lot of time, and eventually got called in to change for intermediates.
By then, the damage had been done, and Hamilton could only manage 10th after finding himself in the lead when the pitstops started to kick in.
“I hung out [there on slicks] as long as I could, [and] got in the lead at one point,” he said.
“And I think just the guidance, in the terms of how much more rain was coming, was just missing there. So I think we missed out.
“The information I got was that it’s just a short shower, real quick, and at the time it was only in the last corner.
“So for me, it was like the rest of the track was dry. I can keep this on track if, if that’s all that’s coming. And then more came.”
In a later interview with Sky, Hamilton shared more
“I felt like I was in the deep end today – just everything is new,” he explained.
“From the first time I was driving this car in the rain, the car was behaving a lot different to what I’ve experienced in the past, the power unit, all the steering functions – all the things are thrown to you and you’re trying to juggle them.
Lewis Hamilton reflects on his first race with Ferrari. pic.twitter.com/C1YCWYLtzJ
— ESPN F1 (@ESPNF1) March 16, 2025
“Unfortunately at the end they said it was just a short shower and the rest of the track was dry so I was like, ‘I’m gonna stick it out as long as I can. I can keep it on the track.’
“They didn’t say more was coming, so then all of a sudden more came, so I think it was just lacking that bit of information at the end.
“I didn’t have any confidence today in it unfortunately, so I’m going to make some changes next week to the car. Today was the braking and the rear stability, particularly on power – there was lots of snaps, I was nearly in the wall a lot!”
Hamilton also spoke about his radio exchanges with his new race engineer Riccardo Adami, as the pair struggled to get on the same page at points during the race.
Lewis Hamilton’s first race finish with Ferrari. pic.twitter.com/WnEmXNCy35
— ESPN F1 (@ESPNF1) March 16, 2025
“I think Riccardo did a really good job – I think 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.
“I’m generally not one that likes a lot of information in the race – unless I need it I’ll ask for it, but he did his best today and we’ll move forward.
“I’m grateful I got through it and came out with a little bit of something, at least at one point. Obviously I didn’t go off or spin today, but lacking pace for sure.
“I do believe the car has more performance than we were able to extract this weekend and it was even less performance, for example, in the race, but I think it’s all settings.
“I’ve learned a huge amount this weekend; there’s a lot to take away from it. I’ve got some changes I’m going to make for next week and see how it goes, but today was a crash course in driving a Ferrari in the rain.”
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