Lewis Hamilton responded to his Ferrari critics after an emphatic Sprint victory at the Formula 1 Chinese Grand Prix.
Hamilton led comfortably from Sprint pole on Saturday and fended off a mid-race challenge from Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.
With the Dutchman falling back into the clutches of McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, Hamilton was able to cruise a near-seven-second victory over the papaya car after the 19-lap Sprint was through.
Speaking to 1997 Drivers’ Champion Jacques Villeneuve in Parce Ferme, Hamilton addressed the criticism that met his difficult debut with Ferrari in Australia.
“I woke up feeling great today,” the first-time Ferrari winner said.
“You know, the weather is beautiful here in Shanghai, we have this amazing crowd.
“But yeah, the first race was difficult. I really do feel a lot of people underestimated the steep climb it is to get into a new team, to become acclimatised within a team, understanding and communication, all sorts of things.
“And the amount of critics and people I’ve heard yapping along the way, just clearly not understanding maybe because they never had the experience or are just unaware.”
READ MORE – F1 2025 Chinese Grand Prix – Sprint Race Results
After receiving that criticism and not feeling at home in the Ferrari last weekend, Hamilton was in high spirits speaking of a much-improved experience in China.
“So it’s felt great to come here and feel more comfortable in the car, because in Melbourne, I really didn’t feel comfortable in the car,” he said.
“From lap one here this weekend, really feeling on it.
“The engineers have done a great job. Mechanics have done a great job to really fine-tune the car and it felt great today.”
‘It takes time to build’ – Hamilton
Hamilton was asked about his Parc Ferme comments in the following press conference.
There he clarified his stance, stating he wasn’t just “talking back,” but wanting to address negativity and clarify how important it is to build into his new Ferrari surroundings.
“I’m not really talking back [critics] or anything like that,” he began.
“It’s just we live in such a strange time in the world that people just love to be negative at any opportunity, even with the smallest things, to be negative about it.
“I think that’s just that’s the difficult time that we’re living in.
“So I see certain individuals and again, I don’t read all that, I don’t really read the news, but I see bits here and there. I see people that I’ve admired for years just talking out of turn.
“Clearly, some of them just making uneducated guesses of what’s going on and like I was just saying, just a real lack of appreciation of how it is not easy moving to a new team that works completely different, a completely different characteristic of car.
“It’s not like you just jump in and it’s good.”
Hamilton pointed to how he seeks to emulate Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel in settling in with Ferrari.
“If you look at Seb, you look at Fernando, they did a great job when they joined the team in their early phases,” he said.
“But to build long-term success with a team takes time to build and that’s what I’m trying to do.I
“‘m not trying to get ahead of myself. I’m just taking my time to build with this great team.
“There’s so much potential in this team. But for us to be at the second race already and have that experience, this is a track I’ve gone well for many, many years. So you’ve got to take that a little bit.
“But in general, I’ve been feeling really good in the car and as I’m learning more of where the car likes to be set up for a track like this, for example, when I get to another track beside the last one, I think I have a bit of a better understanding where to put it.”
READ MORE – Lewis Hamilton takes maiden Ferrari F1 win in Chinese GP Sprint
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