Ferrari is already forced to chase in F1: Australia is hard to digest for Lewis Hamilton and the SF-25, but the Briton defends Riccardo Adami. Too much information while chasing Alexander Albon, then too little during the second stop. Nothing serious, it’s part of the growth process: the real problem lies in the car’s lack of balance.
A tenth-place finish is certainly not the dream debut for Lewis Hamilton. The seven-time world champion, who only arrived in Maranello a few months ago, has to settle for a single championship point after (fortuitously) coming close to the podium. A matter of strategies and circumstances that, for a few fleeting moments, made Scuderia Ferrari fans dream on an otherwise dreadful Sunday.
“I was overtaking drivers at every corner, I thought I could keep my car on track,” the Briton recounted after the race. Over the radio, his race engineer had told him that the rain, already falling on the track, would not last long. But all it took was one lap to shatter the dream: “At a certain point, it started pouring.” Too late to return to the pit lane without consequences.
Lewis Hamilton defends Riccardo Adami after the Australian GP
The communications between Lewis Hamilton and Riccardo Adami, his new race engineer, did not seem particularly smooth from the early stages of the race. Too much information, lamented car #44, who was repeatedly asked to try different settings on the steering wheel.
“Generally, I’m not a driver who likes to receive a lot of information during the race unless I ask for it directly. But [Riccardo Adami] did his best, and we’ll move forward. We are still trying to get to know each other, step by step. We will analyze the race comments, the things I said, and the things he said.”
An overly nervous Ferrari SF-25 in Australia: Lewis Hamilton’s comments
In addition to an unfortunate strategy, the seven-time world champion was also slowed down by a very nervous car. So difficult to drive that even a highly experienced driver like Hamilton found himself “almost in the wall” multiple times.
“From the moment I got in the car on Friday, I didn’t have much confidence [in the car], especially at high speeds. On Saturday, confidence was coming back. I was building and building and building. Then we got to the race, and once again, starting from scratch, I had no confidence, not even in the adjustments, and the car was very difficult to drive.” – the seven-time Formula 1 world champion concluded.
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