Lewis Hamilton says it’s “not the moment to throw the toys out of the pram” and insists that his Ferrari Formula 1 team should not be defined by its difficult race in Australia.
Hamilton qualified eighth in Melbourne, a place behind team mate Charles Leclerc. After a bad decision to stay on slicks cost both men a chance to make progress they finished eighth and 10th, with the Monesgasque driver still ahead.
Hamilton has made no secret of the fact that he still has a lot of work to do as he learns about the team and the car.
“We’re just going to set the car up a bit different this weekend,” he said in Shanghai. “So to this point, I think I’m still having to witness and take a view and see how the team operates.
“I’m still learning, it’s the first weekend to see how they operate on a race weekend – it’s different to testing – how they like to set the car up, the changes they like to make during the weekends.”
He added: “I think as I get more and more comfortable and more knowledgeable about the car, I can start making more decisions, and say, actually, this is the setup change I want to go with.
“So already this weekend I’m having those discussions, and I’m going to lean a little bit more with adding my experience, hopefully there’s a bit more in it. But they’ve got a lot of experience already.
“And yep, it wasn’t the race that we wanted. It’s not the moment to throw the toys out of the pram. It is what it is. One small thing could have made a big difference in our result. But we move forwards.
“Everyone’s still motivated. You’ve got everyone here with their heads high, and I think that the energy is still good in the garage. We’re not going to be defined by that one race.”
Hamilton’s radio conversations with race engineer Ricardo Adami attracted a lot of comment in Australia after he asked several times to be left to it.
The pair are still discovering the most efficient way to communicate, and when I asked how that process is going Hamilton was keen to downplay the subject.
“Naturally, everyone overegged it,” he said. “It was literally just a back and forth. I was very polite in how I suggested it. I said, ‘leave it to me, please.’ I wasn’t saying ‘FU,’ I wasn’t swearing.
“And at that point I was really struggling with the car, and I needed full focus on these couple of things. We’re getting to know each other. He’s obviously had two champions or more in the past, and there’s no issues between us. Go and listen to the radio calls with others and their engineers – far worse, far worse.
“The conversations that Max has within engineer over the years, the abuse that the poor guy’s taken, and you never write about it, but you write about the smallest little discussion I have with mine. Ultimately we’re we’re literally just getting to know each other.
“So afterwards I’m like, ‘Hey, bro, I don’t need that bit of information. But if you want to give me this, this is the place I’d like to do it. This is how I’m feeling in the car and at these points, this is when I do and don’t need the information.’
“And it’s that’s what it’s about. There’s no issues, and it’s done with a smiley face. And we move forward.”
Adam Cooper F1 