Lewis Hamilton was left frustrated after his first Grand Prix with Ferrari ended in a disappointing 10th-place finish at the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne.
Hamilton found the going tough in his new car in a race that started in wet conditions, then dried out through the mid-point in the race only for the rain to return and throw the final third of the race into chaos for the seven-time world champion.
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Despite leading the race at one point, Hamilton ended up with just one championship point to show for his efforts and, speaking to Sky Sports F1 after the race, he revealed that things turned out to be much tougher than he had bargained for.
“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.”
The changing weather conditions at Albert Park meant that the challenge of racing in a brand new car was made even more difficult for Hamilton, who said that he spent much of the race getting fully used to his new car.
“(There was) a lot to take from it,” he said.
“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.”
Hamilton had a series of terse exchanges with his race engineer during the course of the race as his relationship with the pit wall over the team radio got off to a bumpy start.
He also admitted his frustration over the information he was given by the team about the shower that hit the track in the second half of the race.
The team told Hamilton it would only be a short shower that would hit a small section of the track, but instead it turned out to be a much more significant shower that, after initially being kept out on slicks, eventually forced Hamilton to pit and lose a host of positions.
“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.”
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