Hamilton responds to Ferrari relationship claim: 'That's complete rubbish'
10:30, 03 Apr
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Lewis Hamilton has dismissed a lack of faith in Ferrari after its shaky start to the new Formula 1 season.
The seven-time champion finished only 10th in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix after the Scuderia chose the wrong strategy as rain fell late in the race.
Improvement was found to take pole and victory in the Chinese Grand Prix sprint - Hamilton's first win in a shortened race - only for the pace to fall away through the weekend.
But there were no points to show for his sixth place as both Ferrari cars were disqualified for techincal infringements post race, with Hamilton's rearward skidplank overworn and Charles Leclerc's car underweight.
"I didn't feel any frustration or anything afterwards. It is what it is," Hamilton told media ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix.
"Of course, we have gone through everything. I was at the factoru on Wednesday - lots of learnings.
"We take the highs and lows together as a team, it's obviously not everyone worked hard to have happen on the race weekend - no team, no engineer, no mechanic puts all the effort in for something like that."
Hamilton has 100% faith in Ferrari
"I'd say the most impressive thing is how the team has taken it, how they've worked, how they've churned through the data and how we've progress from here is the most important," added Hamilton.
"I saw someone said something of whether I am losing faith in the team? That's complete rubbish.
"I have 100% faith in this team. There was obviously a huge amount of hype at the beginning of the year. I don't know if anyone was expecting us to be winning from race one and winning a championship in our first year. That wasn't my expectation.
"I know that I'm coming into a new culture, a new team and it's going to take time. I have spent the past two months just observing how the team works in comparison to the other two teams that I've worked at and in the past week I have been able to make notes and create pointers of areas that I feel we can improve on.
"That will continue through the year as we learn more and more about each other."
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