After a record-breaking stint at Mercedes over the past decade, Lewis Hamilton always knew he would have to recalibrate at Ferrari this year and start from ground zero. However, little did he know that he would struggle so much.
After qualifying a disappointing eighth for the Australian GP, the Briton revealed that while he always knew he would take time to come to terms with Ferrari’s cars, he did not foresee the struggle in communicating with his new engineers.
Not having Peter Bonnington — who had been his race engineer since Hamilton joined Mercedes in 2013 — by his side, the 40-year-old is not able to convey to his new engineers where he wants the car to be worked on. “I don’t know which tools to use at the moment,” he explained per Sky Sports. “I’m heavily reliant, for the first time, on my engineers”.
That is when he remembered Bonnington, famously known as Bono.
“They’ve done a great job but in the past, I would say, ‘Bono, this is what I want. That setting, this setting,'” he explained. “And I can’t do that at the moment”.
Having worked together with Bonnington for so long, the two certainly developed an excellent bond and understanding that Hamilton will now have to find with his new race engineer, Riccardo Adami.
#AusGP | Lewis Hamilton talks his first qualifying with Ferrari:
“It was cool. I was really exploring all the kerbs, really giving it everything. Definitely didn’t expect us to be as far off as we were but to be that close to Charles in the end in my first qualifying session… pic.twitter.com/oDvtONhaxD
— deni (@fiagirly) March 15, 2025
While Adami has served as Carlos Sainz and Sebastian Vettel’s race engineer previously at the Scuderia, working with Hamilton would certainly be a novel experience for him too, given the seven-time world champion’s star reputation.
Adami trying his best to make Hamilton comfortable at Ferrari
Hamilton and Adami have to mutually work to form a good connection. The Italian engineer is well aware of that and is trying his best to help the former Mercedes man settle in as quickly as possible at Maranello.
Adami did so after Hamilton’s disappointing outing during the Australian GP qualifying by providing him with some words of encouragement. “Tough one,” he said after Hamilton told him on the radio that he didn’t “know what happened there” after managing to qualify only in P8. “Overall good job out there”.
The silver lining for Hamilton, though, would be that he was only two-tenths of Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc’s time, having been as much as six-tenths slower during initial running in Melbourne. Realizing that Leclerc was not much faster in the other Ferrari, Hamilton also said in his post-qualifying interview that he will “definitely take it [P8]”.
#AusGP | Lewis Hamilton explains his qualifying deficit to Charles Leclerc:
“If you look at the high speed everywhere, I’ve been down all weekend. Charles just had it from the get go. From the minute he went out, he knew what the car does.”
“For me, I was just building up… pic.twitter.com/FuFYhnK4YK
— deni (@fiagirly) March 15, 2025
Leclerc too stated after qualifying that their pace surprised them as “everything went smoothly” for them during practice on Friday when he registered the third-fastest time in FP1 and topped the FP2 session. While Ferrari would definitely be disappointed with how qualifying went and they will have a lot to look back at, all is still not lost for them.
With heavy rain and thunderstorms expected during the Grand Prix on Sunday, a lot can still change. Hamilton and Leclerc will certainly hope that the weather spices things up and they could use it to their advantage to challenge for the podium places.
