Lewis Hamilton's first F1 race weekend with Ferrari: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

In terms of debuts, Lewis Hamilton's first race with Ferrari could not have been more dynamic, chaotic, and, for us viewers, fun! The race in Australia featured everything, from rain to safety cars, to stoppages, which arguably prompted some chaotic strategies.

In terms of numbers, however, the race was not something to write home about. Hamilton started the race in P8 and ended it in P10, and from that snapshot alone, it should tell you that it wasn't a fun outing for the F1 legend.

With that being said, it was not all his fault. Some things worked well for him and some things didn't.

So how was the 7x time champion's first weekend with Ferrari? Let's take a look.

Lewis Hamilton's first race with Ferrari

The good

When Lewis Hamilton was getting ready for his debut at Ferrari, one of the things that raised eyebrows was the fact that the British driver's lack of adaptability had hurt him at Mercedes. Hamilton's last three years at the German team comprised him struggling to find that sweet spot with the car.

If the first race weekend is any hint, he has started the stint on a positive note. While we can get into the driver styles and how both Ferrari drivers differ in their approach on the track, the final result is arguably the most important thing.

Unlike his final season at Mercedes, where there were race weekends where he was all at sea in qualifying against George Russell, the race weekend in Australia was not that. Lewis is still learning the car and is still getting used to the things around him, a process that is not yet complete.

With that being said, the qualifying lap was rather satisfactory. The two-tenths gap is deceiving because Leclerc couldn't do his final lap, but overall Hamilton is too far behind. The gap between him and his teammate reflects the gap of a driver who is still getting used to life on a new team.

Hence, in terms of driver performance and ability, the Brit is in a good place.

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The Bad

Charles Leclerc overtook Lewis Hamilton twice in the F1 Australian GP, and he did so without much of a resistance either. Sure, there is an element of the veteran not being as embedded in the team as his teammate, but the ease with which the younger Ferrari driver went through would not have gone down well with Hamilton.

To add to this, we must keep in mind that Hamilton is not the only driver on the grid who has either changed teams this season or is making a debut. Except for McLaren and Aston Martin, every other team is fielding a new lineup.

Some level of discomfort between a driver and his race engineer is not surprising, but what we had in Australia was an exaggerated version of it. Lest we forget, Esteban Ocon has also moved teams after five years, and Nico Hulkenberg is doing so after a couple of years at Haas.

If we go through conversations those drives had with their engineers, the lack of coherence between Lewis Hamilton and Ricciardo Adami becomes even more evident.

Ferrari might not be fighting for a title this season, but if there's a possibility of it doing so, Lewis Hamilton would need to accelerate the adaptation process because there's a clear deficit that he's working with compared to quite a few drivers.

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The Ugly

This arguably does not have anything to do with Lewis Hamilton, but with Ferrari. The seven-time F1 world champion got the first taste of what it means to be a driver for the Italian outfit, as the strategy mirrored what has become the norm with this team. Gambling in the wet weather is nothing new, but if every time you gamble and end up on the wrong side, then there's a problem.

Lewis Hamilton has very likely realized the size of the task in front of him because he knows what a team needs to win titles; this race would have been enough for him to realize that Ferrari is still a few steps away from reaching a point where it can taste the championship glory.

Overall verdict?

There are two ways to look at it. As a driver, Lewis Hamilton has every reason to be more or less satisfied with how his weekend went. As a team, on the other hand, this weekend was surely a reality check of where Ferrari stands at the moment.