Lewis Hamilton admitted he is low on confidence after he finished only 10th on his much-anticipated Ferrari debut.
Hamilton’s move from Mercedes to the Italian giants took centre stage at the opening round of the new Formula One season in Australia.
But the seven-time world champion failed to deliver on the hype after he qualified eighth, and then lost two places in the race, with Ferrari a long way short of their rivals.
For much of his first appearance in red, Hamilton ran in eighth, trailing Williams’ Alex Albon, while politely asking new race engineer, Riccardo Adami to “leave it to me” on several occasions. Adami was urging Hamilton to use an overtake button in his Ferrari.
A late rain shower offered hope for Hamilton, but Ferrari left it far too late to change him from the dry tyres to inters.
Although Hamilton temporarily led the race, he emerged from the pits one place worse off in ninth.
“We just missed a big opportunity there,” said a frustrated Hamilton over the radio.
When Adami informed him he was now ninth, Hamilton yelled: “S***!”
To make matters worse for Hamilton, he was overtaken by team-mate Charles Leclerc and then McLaren’s Oscar Piastri on the final lap.
“It was definitely a crash course,” said Hamilton afterwards.
“Sometimes that’s OK but it felt like I was in the deep, deep end today.
“Just everything is new. From the first time driving it in the rain, the car was behaving a lot different to what I’ve experienced in the past – the power unit, the steering functions they’re throwing to you, you’re trying to juggle it all.
“Unfortunately at the end they said it was only a short shower and 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’.
“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.
“I didn’t have any confidence today unfortunately. I’m going to make some changes next week to the car and to the set-up. There were lots of snaps. I was nearly in the wall most of the time.
“I’ve definitely made a step but it’s just confidence. On Friday, particularly in the high speed, I was down all the time.
“And then on Saturday the confidence came back and I was building, building, building. And then we got to the race and again I was starting from scratch. I didn’t have any confidence for pretty much the whole race.”
Ferrari were expected to be McLaren’s closest challengers this season, but they leave Melbourne with just five points after Leclerc finished only eighth.
However, Ferrari believe they will be quicker at next week’s race in Shanghai.
Hamilton added: “I do believe the car has more performance than we were able to extract. It’s all set-up.
“I don’t know whether we had anywhere near the pace as maybe the McLarens had today. But I do think in the car there is a lot more performance.”
