Lewis Hamilton “heavily reliant on engineers” in steep Ferrari learning curve

Lewis Hamilton says he is “heavily reliant” on his engineers as he continues to adjust to driving Ferrari’s F1 car.

The seven-time world champion qualified eighth behind new teammate Charles Leclerc at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, which marks his first competitive outing for Ferrari.

Hamilton was 0.218s slower than Leclerc and a massive 0.877s behind Lando Norris, who claimed pole position and led a dominant McLaren front-row lockout in the first qualifying session of the season in Melbourne.

After his debut qualifying appearance for F1’s most iconic team, Hamilton, who spent 12 seasons with Mercedes, admitted he thought he was further along in his learning of Ferrari’s 2025 challenger.

"I honestly thought I was further along than I was and then I got here for P1, and I was like, 'I still got a way to go’,” Hamilton said. "There's still a ton of tools that I'm still not there on.

"When you have a problem in the car and you come in, normally when you've got the experience, you can say, 'Hey, this is where I want to go with it.’ But I don't know which tools to use at the moment. I'm heavily reliant, for the first time, on my engineers.

"They've done a great job but in the past I would say, 'Bono, this is what I want. That setting, this setting.' And I can't do that at the moment."

The 40-year-old Briton conceded he is still unfamiliar with how to get the best out of Ferrari’s machinery.

“There's a ton of tools that I'm still popping out like, ‘I've never tried that, what does it do?’” Hamilton added.

“Braking and through-corner balance is a lot different to what I had [at Mercedes]. The mechanical balance shift is much, much different… and the high-speed balance, the low-speed balance is quite a shift.

“I've been down all weekend to Charles, who just had it from the get-go from the minute he went out. He knew what the car does but I was just building up to that through the weekend, and I think I got a lot closer towards it in the end.”

Hamilton in the dark about Ferrari’s wet switches

And Hamilton is bracing for a new challenge altogether, if forecast rain hits Albert Park for Sunday’s grand prix.

Hamilton has not yet driven the SF-25 in the wet and admitted he currently lacks knowledge of the car’s switches for such conditions.

“Frickin’ hell, I've never driven the car in the wet,” he explained. “I don't know which buttons I'm going to switch to tomorrow, so that's going to be new.

“We're using Brembos, which I've not used for a long, long time. So I don’t know how the Brembos behave in the wet, or what settings we're going to have to use with this car.

“When you qualify 8th you kind of hope for it to be wet, but I've only got three laps to learn the car in the wet and then get out [for the race].

“It’s going to be a shock to the system, but I'm going to be learning on the fly and just giving it everything.”