Lewis Hamilton said a “crash course” in finding out how to drive his Ferrari Formula 1 car in the wet left him grateful to just make it to the finish of the Australian Grand Prix.
While the seven-time F1 champion’s 10th place result was below expectations, Hamilton said that his hopes of doing any better were dashed by a lack of confidence in how his car handled in the rain.
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Suffering in particular from a nervous rear end under acceleration, which left him “nearly in the wall most of the time”, Hamilton explained how the wet conditions wiped away all the gains he had made earlier in the weekend in feeling more comfortable in his new car.
“I think just for me, it was just confidence,” he said. “From the moment I got in the car on Friday, I didn’t have the confidence. Particularly in the high speed, I was down a huge amount.
“I got to Saturday, confidence was coming back. I was building and building and building. And then we got to the race, and again, starting from scratch, and I didn’t have any confidence through pretty much most of the race, in the settings as well, and the car was very tricky.”
The slick gamble
While he spent much of the grand prix in the lower reaches of the top 10, he did get shuffled to the front briefly during the late race downpour as he stayed on slicks while others pitted for intermediates.
The decision ultimately proved to be the wrong one as he failed to gain any time as conditions worsened and he eventually had to pit during the subsequent safety car period.
Speaking about that phase of the race, Hamilton said: “In the last sector, everyone was going off, but I was managing to hold it on.
“So I was just passing people and, once I got past the start line it was dry, so I was like, ‘I can hold this out. I’ve only got a few more laps to go.’ But then it pelted down just in that last two laps, it started coming down.
“At the end they said it’s just a short shower so I was like ‘I’m going to hold it out’ and the rest of the track was dry. They didn’t say more was coming and all of a sudden more came. I think it was just lacking a bit of information at the end.”
Radio chatter
Hamilton’s race also included some intriguing radio conversations between himself and engineer Riccardo Adami – as he pleaded at times to be left alone rather than be fed information.
Reflecting on their first race together, Hamilton admitted that it would likely take some time for their new relationship to bed down and understand how best to approach things.
“I think Riccardo did a really good job,” he said. “We’re learning about each other bit by bit. After this we’ll download, go through all the comments, the things I said and vice versa.
“Generally I’m not one that likes a lot of information in the race unless I need it and ask for it. He did his best today and we’ll move forwards.”
