Lewis Hamilton’s adaptation to Ferrari continued during the overwhelming weekend of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix team.
Seven-time world champion Hamilton joined F1’s most famous team at the beginning of the year, enduring the challenging adjustment process at Ferrari after completing a smash hit switch from rival Mercedes.
Hamilton’s start to life at Ferrari has not been planned, but he feels that since the summer holidays in Formula 1 he has made encouraging progress, which is hidden by Ferrari’s overall lack of competitiveness.
After finishing eighth and first place with Baku’s teammate Charles Leclerc, the 40-year-old Briton detailed where he could still make improvements.
“I think there are still some improvements in terms of how aggressive I am,” explained Hamilton.
“This car is very pimple and I’m not 100% confident in the brakes when I’m attacking the brakes. In the last race, in this race, I didn’t feel much of a sense of the setup we have.
“It’s a bit crazy, because we’re progressing, but we’re not actually getting results in the last few races. But there’s no progress so I think we can get good weekends and good results.”
Speaking to Sky Sports F1, Hamilton added:
“Through the practice after P2, honestly, I feel very good in the car and I think in the end I’m in the wrong direction with the car, but our ultimate pace of racing wasn’t on par with the people before us.
“But when you look at where Williams is, the qualifying is clearly very important. They did an amazing job. Congratulations. What a great result.
“I’m happy that we’ve moved forward from the 12th, but I couldn’t really care about that position.”
Hamilton is not completely comfortable yet with the SF-25
Hamilton’s head to head defeat to Leclair
Leclerc has officially made it to the top in a direct battle for hegemony at Ferrari.
Monegasque defeated Hamilton in 12 of the 15 races where both drivers completed.
Leclerc also outperforms Hamilton 13-4 head-to-head in qualifying.
Leclerc finished five times on the podium, but Hamilton has yet to record the appearance of the podium on Ferrari’s first 17 grand prix.
After Azerbaijan, Leclerc placed fifth in the Drivers Championship with 165 points and 44 points from Hamilton.