F1 News
New task awaits Hamilton in the rain: 'I don't know where that button is!'
Ferrari did not have the best of qualifying session at the Australian GP, as Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton finishes seventh and eighth respectively. The seven-time world champion explained that his debut with a Scuderia has been quite challenging so far.
"Big learning curve this weekend. The car was so much different from the moment I left the pit lane just feeling so much different than I've ever experienced here. And, it's really taken me, it's been a lot slower process for me to like really build confidence in the car," Hamilton began rating his performance in Melbourne, where he finished in P8.
That means he will start from behind Leclerc, but on the same row of the grid. "And if you look at the high speed everywhere, I've been down all weekend, to Charles, who just had it from the get go. From just the minute he went out, he knew what the car does. And for me, I was, like, just building up to that through the weekend. And I think I got a lot closer towards it in the end. And to be that close to Charles in my first qualifying session in the car, against a great qualifier," he explained.
Hamilton to learn more in rainy conditions
With rain predicted for the Grand Prix on Sunday, Hamilton will get to learn another thing about his current car. "I've never driven the car in the wet. I don't even know where the wet switch is really on, I don't know where to… I don't know which buttons I'm gonna switch to once tomorrow. So that's going to be new."
Now, Hamilton is also just still adapting to the new environment he is in. "It's really bit by bit. I think we did some good work when in trying to move the car forward. But as I said, like, when you have a problem in the car and you come in, normally, when you've got the experience, you can say: ‘okay this is where I want go with it’."
He concluded: "But I don't know which tool to use at the moment. So I'm heavily reliant for the first time I'm on my engineers, and I've done they've done a great job. But in the past, I would say, one of them, this is what I want. That setting, this setting, and I can't do that at all."
This article was written in collaboration with Mitchel van der Hoef
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