Lewis Hamilton given brutal dose of Ferrari F1 reality – as full extent of radio messages revealed
After a frustrating Ferrari debut, Hamilton will need to improve his driver-engineer partnership with Riccardo Adami if he is to thrive at the Italian team this year
There’s nothing like racing agony, the reality of a new dawn compared to the high-octane hullaballoo, to wipe out a two-month period of euphoric bliss. Lewis Hamilton arrived in Melbourne visibly joyous ahead of the opening chapter of his Ferrari story. Three days on, F1’s joint-most successful driver will now be under no illusions regarding the scale of the voyage ahead.
And it wasn’t just Ferrari’s late fumble – for both drivers, we should add, with Charles Leclerc also impacted – which will eat away at Hamilton on his flight to Shanghai this week for next weekend’s Chinese GP. Nor will it be the last-lap concession to Oscar Piastri, resorting Hamilton to a 10th-place finish and just one point in the Albert Park rain on Sunday.
In fact, the signs were actually ominous from the wet weather forecast long set for Sunday’s grand prix. Conditions that Hamilton usually revels in actually – to the surprise of the whole paddock – gave him cause for concern.
“I don’t know which buttons I’m going to switch to tomorrow,” he admitted about driving the SF-25 car in the rain, after qualifying a disappointing eighth on the grid.
“I don’t know what settings we’re going to have to use with the car.”
It seemed an astonishing revelation, and it set the tone for Sunday’s chaotic season-opening race in which Hamilton’s patience wore thin, right from lights out to the chequered flag.
Gradual indications of Hamilton’s angst increasing were played out to the world, as ever, on team radio. After he was paired with new race engineer Riccardo “Ricky” Adami – a 51-year-old Italian stalwart of Ferrari who has previously worked with Sebastian Vettel and Carlos Sainz – an intense 58-lap grand prix placed their new partnership firmly in the spotlight. And, perhaps inevitably after 12 years with the same engineer, Peter “Bono” Bonnington, at Mercedes, there are issues to iron out.
It is no secret that Hamilton prefers brief, concise instructions in his ear while driving at 200mph around a narrow street circuit. Who can blame him for that? As such, Adami’s regular interventions on Sunday were not welcomed by the 40-year-old. At the start of his 19th season in F1, Hamilton is well attuned to what makes him tick. And this was not it.
While driving behind the safety car on lap four, when told to “stay in mode charge… charge button on”, Hamilton’s response was polite but firm.
“Yeah, no problem. Just don’t repeat everything, please.”
Nine laps later, Hamilton responded, “Leave me to it, please” twice when instructed to use an overtake button on the steering wheel, as he frustratingly failed to pass the Williams of Alex Albon. By lap 25, the Briton’s replies were sharper: “Yes, please leave it, please leave it.”
Much of this should be expected. Even in Hamilton’s title-winning pomp at Mercedes, former engineer Bono experienced his fair share of vexed Hamilton rebukes. Yet with dark clouds circling in Melbourne in the final 10 laps on Sunday, what Hamilton cannot expect is to make a strategy call himself, unaware of the weather radar. And the inaccuracy of Ferrari’s forecasts cost them dear.
As the rain fell, most of the field pitted while Hamilton and Leclerc stayed out on dry tyres. When Max Verstappen changed tyres, Hamilton took the lead and asked: “Is more rain coming?”
Adami replied: “Negative… just this… hopefully… let’s see.” It did not exactly inspire confidence, but Hamilton persevered. It was the wrong call.
By the time a change of tyres was a necessity as opposed to a 50/50 option, Hamilton knew immediately that the gamble had not paid off.
“Ah s***, we should have come in,” Hamilton said, doing well to keep the car on track as eventual race winner Norris, on intermediate tyres, overtook him for the lead. “More rain is coming. The whole track is wet now.”
And by the time Hamilton eventually changed tyres, a safety car was out due to two crashes and the Brit had dropped to ninth. His exasperation at the missed opportunity – smelling a podium, maybe even a victory – was as clear as the blue skies suddenly incoming.
“I thought you said it wasn’t going to rain much? We missed a big opportunity there. S***.”
To his credit, Hamilton did not twist the knife in when speaking to the media afterwards. “I think Riccardo did a really good job,” he said. “We’re learning about each other and, bit by bit after this, we’ll download and go through all the comments and all the things I said.
“Generally I’m not one who likes a load of comments during a race. If I need it I’ll ask for it. But he did his best today and we’ll go through it.
“Unfortunately, at the end they told me it was only a ‘short shower’. The rest of the track was dry so I was like, ‘I’m going to stick it out as long as I can, and keep it on the dry [line].’ But they didn’t say more [rain] was coming. And then more came. So I think I was just lacking that bit of information at the end.”
In defence of Ferrari’s strategy department, these are split-second decisions being made with a whole range of moving parts. Yet Red Bull, Mercedes and McLaren timed their pit stops accurately; Ferrari did not.
Ferrari’s floundering in the tactical department has long been used as a stick to beat the prancing horse. A series of errors in 2022 ultimately cost Mattia Binotto his job as team principal and current boss Fred Vasseur has worked hard to improve the clarity and accuracy of decisions from the pit wall to the cockpit.
But Melbourne showed they are far from perfect. Perhaps of more concern to Hamilton will be Ferrari’s lack of pace: forget runaway leaders McLaren, they were even short of Verstappen’s Red Bull and former team Mercedes this weekend. For all the fanfare of his £50m-a-year move, Hamilton will now know the extent of the challenge ahead if he wants to compete for a world championship.
“It went a lot worse than I thought it would go,” he summarised. “The car was really, really hard to drive today. I’m just grateful that I kept it out of the wall… because that’s where it wanted to go most of the time.”
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