Ferrari trio of Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc and Frederic Vasseur reflect on what transpired F1 Australian GP, which they term as missed opportunity.
Whether it was missed opportunity or lack of pace, Ferrari did not have the greatest of starts to its 2025 F1 campaign in Australian GP, finishing only eighth and 10th. Not only that, they are behind their customer team Sauber, who collected six points to the Italian’s five.
It all went downhill in Q3 on Saturday when they qualified only seventh and eighth. The rainy conditions only added to misery, especially in the latter stages. They started on a good note after Leclerc managed to overtake to be fifth, even if Hamilton was stuck behind Alexander Albon in eighth.
The rain provided a gamble opportunity with Hamilton leading at one point, with Leclerc in third. But it was not for long as relentless rain eventually forced them to pit. The delayed decision dropped them to ninth and 10th, where the Brit was ahead of the Monegasque.
Leclerc barged his way through to end up eighth after clearing Pierre Gasly as well. Hamilton passed the Frenchman too, but lost to Oscar Piastri to be only 10th. The Monegasque thought it was a missed opportunity considering the conditions, but the weather is a weakness of theirs too.
He is wary of McLaren’s pace, as Hamilton was mostly in his ‘crash course’ era. He was relatively upbeat irrespective of the result. The Brit reckons Ferrari’s has performance in them, but they just to unlock. He praised his race engineer and already has an idea of what setup changes they need for China.
He admits the communication could have been better in terms of the strategy, where that one lap delay cost them dearly. It was something team boss Vasseur agreed to as well. The Frenchman reiterated that the result wasn’t the real picture of their true performance.
Radio communication –
Hamilton: “I think Riccardo did a really good job. We’re learning about each other bit by bit. After this, we’ll go through all the comments, things I said, and vice versa. Generally, I’m not one who likes a lot of information in races unless I need it, but he did his best today and we move forward. Sometimes it’s ok, but today it felt like I was in the deep, deep end. Just everything is new, from the first time I’m driving this car in the rain, the car was behaving a lot different to what I’ve experienced in the past. The power unit, all the steering functions, all the things that are thrown to you, you’re trying to juggle all these new things.
“Unfortunately, at the end they said it was just a short shower, so I was like, I’m going to hold it out, 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 track. They didn’t say more was coming, and all of a sudden, more came. So I think it was just lacking that bit of information at the end, but I didn’t have any confidence today in it, unfortunately. I’m going to make some changes next week to the car, to the setup.”
Leclerc: “This is something that we always look at and that we know is something that we need to always keep our focus on. Whether today was particularly bad, I don’t think so. But we’ll look into it.”
Vasseur: “For sure, we have to find best way to communicate, we have to know each other. It was the first race, the first time that we have to communicate between the pitwall and the car. We can do a better job and know each other more, for sure it was not a clean one at all, the strategy was difficult and we need to find a better way to communicate between the car and the pitwall but we will learn from race one and it is not an issue.”
Race, result –
Hamilton: “Yeah, definitely a big crash course today. I’m just grateful I kept it out of the wall. I’m grateful I got through it, came out of it with a little bit of something, at least one point. Obviously I didn’t go off or spin today. Lacking pace, for sure, but I do believe the car has more performance than we were able to extract this weekend, and it was even less performance, for example, in the race. But I think it’s just settings. It wasn’t the braking. It was just rear stability, particularly on power. There were lots of snaps. I was nearly in the wall lots of times.”
Leclerc: “For sure, it was definitely a missed opportunity. Especially in those conditions when it’s changing and that you don’t have the pace, it’s there that you got to score the points and we didn’t today. We were not fast enough at the beginning of the race when the race was kind of boring, and then once it mattered to make the right choice, we didn’t. But the first one to blame is my mistake out of Turn 11, because I lost four positions or five positions and from that mistake. Then it puts us on the back foot. If you look three or four positions in front, then we are third or fourth, which I think was what could be done. But it’s the way it is.”
Strategy –
Hamilton: “The last sector (of the lap), everyone was going off but I was managing to hold on, so I was just passing people, and once we got to the start line, it was dry. So I was like: ‘This is fine for me, I’ve just got to hold this out, I’ve only got a few laps to go’. But then it pelted down just in the last two laps or something, it was coming down, and that’s the moment we probably should have come in. In that moment, I don’t know, I was like, ‘oh my God, I’m third’. I was leading for a second. But I mean, yeah, I don’t know if we have anywhere near the pace as the McLarens had today. But I do think in the actual car, there is a lot more performance, I just don’t think we unlocked it this weekend.”
Vasseur: “It was a strange situation because Sector 1 and 2 were still dry and Sector 3 was wet.It was a kind of bet…we bet on the fact we have to stay on track and wait for the last part of the race with slicks. When Mercedes and McLaren pitted two laps before, we went at the wrong time, the best option was to pit on the same lap as Max and we made the wrong call this time. This is very difficult…we don’t have a sense of the rain, it is more of a feeling and what we can see on the screen and have on the radar from corner to corner. We were all surprised about the quantity of rain at this stage of the race, McLaren first, to stay on track with the slicks and just survive at the end it is easy to say it was the wrong call. “
Pace, rival –
Leclerc: “We were definitely very off in terms of pace compared to the McLarens and Max, so we’ll look into it, but yes, for sure we were struggling today. We were pretty similar to Mercedes in front, that was it. Then McLaren and Red Bull were so much faster, so there’s a lot of work to be done. Why especially in those conditions, I don’t know yet. But it has been a weakness that we have had since quite a few years, I think we’ve been quite up and down whenever it was raining and we’ve got to work on that. McLaren were incredibly quick.
“To be completely honest, I know that they are incredibly quick because I’ve heard they are incredibly quick. But my engineer didn’t even tell me once the lap times of the McLaren. I think they were too far ahead. So I don’t exactly know whether it’s a second or a second and a half or two. I hope not two. But I’ve heard some numbers that are quite impressive. So we’ll have to… Now I’ll go back and look into it and try to understand where we are losing the most compared to them.”
Vasseur: “My job is to be concerned with the racing. If you look, on Friday, we were in a good shape and position, I think we struggled more in Q3, seventh tenths behind McLaren. We lost the battle in Q3 for me, what happened in the race was difficult but not the real picture.
Confidence –
Hamilton: “I think just for me, it was just confidence. From the moment I got in the car on Friday, I didn’t have the confidence. Particularly in the high speed, I was down a huge amount. I got to Saturday, confidence was coming back. I was building and building and building. And then we got to the race, and again, starting from scratch, and I didn’t have any confidence through pretty much most of the race, in the settings as well, and the car was very tricky.”
Here’s Lewis Hamilton losing to Oscar Piastri: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-australian-grand-prix-piastri-powers-past-hamilton-to-snatch-p9-with-daring-move.1826731444665200011
Here’s how F1 Australian GP panned out