Lewis Hamilton was left to rue a potential lost podium at the Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix victory after a questionable strategic decision by Ferrari.
Ferrari’s electric race start pace became an instant talking point in Melbourne, as Hamilton and teammate Charles Leclerc shot off the line at lights out.
Running third in the opening stages, the seven-time world champion looked in contention for a podium as well as the win as the SF-26 delivered on pre-season promise.
But his race took a turn for the worse during a VSC deployment to recover the stricken Red Bull of Isack Hadjar, as Ferrari performed a strategic blunder.
Mercedes opted to stop for tyres, doubled stacking their cars, while Ferrari continued, ceding track position and falling out of sequence with the Silver Arrows.
Although he challenged Leclerc for third, Hamilton questioned why neither driver had pitted, but maintained he had no mixed emotions.
“There’s no mixed emotions, I feel great,” he said to media, including Motorsport Week.
“It was a really great race. 7th to 4th.I think the team did a great job overall and the car was fantastic. We’re not obviously where we want to be in terms of pace to Mercedes, but… I think there’s lots and lots of positives to take away.
Question over Ferrari strategy for Lewis Hamilton?
Although reaffirming he was happy with the result, Lewis Hamilton maintained Mercedes had a pace advantage over the Scuderia during the race.
However, Hamilton admitted he wanted to investigate why neither car pitted during the VSC, adding his aims for Ferrari, and his enjoyment of driving the new cars.
“I don’t have mixed emotions about it, he reaffirmed.
“As I said, we got 3rd and 4th, I think ultimately the Mercedes were quicker than us, and that’s probably the only position.
“The only result is that we were going to have a maximum of 3rd again today. I.We’ll definitely go and look and see whether, you know, stopping might be better. I definitely thought, when I saw two Mercedes going, one ahead of me, one behind me, I thought we should have come in, or at least one of us should have come in and covered. We’ll have a look and see what we’ve got there.”
“Yeah, I mean, we’re just going to keep pushing, and we’ve got to bring upgrades and keep developing, which I know the team is working hard on to make sure that we’re going to look and see where we’re losing.
“It looks like we’re losing straight, because I think we’re just as good as them on the cars, but we just need to see. They have something on straight line speeds, and that’s something we need to figure out. But I have no doubts that we can do that.”
“I personally loved it. I thought the race was really fun to drive. I thought the car was really, really fun to drive.I watched the cars ahead, there was a good back and forth.
“So, yeah. So far, so good.It’s a good experience.”
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