Lewis Hamilton finished down in 10th on his Ferrari debut (Image: Getty Images)
Lewis Hamilton appears to still be adjusting to his new surroundings at . The seven-time world champion was at the centre of all the after completing the to the Prancing Horse.
But despite all the lofty expectations, he endured an anticlimactic weekend in his debut race in the famous red strip of . He managed only at the , which yielded a single point for the Brit. With the changing weather throwing up tricky racing conditions, Hamilton found himself constantly complaining to his new race engineer Riccardo Adami about the information he was receiving over the team radio.
After abandoned their risky strategy to remain on dry tyres as the rain poured down in the latter stages, Hamilton couldn’t hide his frustration, saying over the team radio: “I thought you said it wasn’t going to rain much? Just missed a big opportunity there.”
His annoyance appeared to underscore how much he missed the rapport with his long-time colleague Peter ‘Bono’ Bonnington, who opted to stay with , where Hamilton enjoyed so many successful years.
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Hamilton said after the race: “I hung out for as long as I could and got the lead at one point, but the guidance just in terms of how much more rain was coming was missing there. So I think we missed out.
“The information that I got was just that it was a short shower, quick, and at the time it was only in the last corner. So for me, I was like, ‘well, if the rest of the track is dry then I can keep this on track if that’s coming’. But then more came.”
Riccardo Adami is Lewis Hamilton’s new race engineer at Ferrari (Image: Formula 1 via Getty Images)
Hamilton managed to finish the race, unlike six other drivers who fell victim to the tough conditions. In the end, he was grateful for that alone and said: “It was very tricky. It went a lot worse than I thought it would go.
“The car was really, really hard to drive today, so for me I’m just grateful that I kept it out of the wall because that was where it wanted to go most of the time. But there’s a lot to take from it. Just getting acclimatised to the new power unit in the wet conditions, all the settings on the steering wheel.”
Despite a challenging first day behind the wheel of the SF-25, he did also offer a more optimistic outlook, adding: ” and had serious pace, so there’s work to do, but we’ll dig deep. I’m looking forward to getting back in the car next weekend in China.”