‘No Hamilton fairytale as Norris and McLaren deliver on potential’

Grand Prix of Australia

Melbourne’s Albert Park Date: Sunday, March 16th Race start time: 04:00 GMT

Lewis Hamilton’s first competitive appearance for Ferrari was no fairy tale for the world of motorsport, with the most renowned driver starting his career with the sport’s most recognizable team.

The seven-time world champion qualified only eighth for the season-opening Grand Prix of Australia – one place and 0.218 seconds slower than his team-mate Charles Leclerc, and a whopping 0.877secs behind Lando Norris’ McLaren on pole position.

Afterward, Hamilton kept saying that it will take some time before he is fully acquainted with his new car and team, a mantra he has been using for a while.

He said, “For me, just improving every single lap, session on session.” “Big learning curve this weekend.

It has taken a lot longer to build confidence in the car because it was so much different from what I’ve ever experienced here.

He didn’t complete the sentence, but the meaning was clear – Leclerc is blindingly fast, everyone knows that. This was a perfectly good start, from Hamilton’s point of view, given his own respectable performance.

Ferrari themselves cannot be held to be the same. Hamilton is at Ferrari with one objective only – to win an eighth world title. On Thursday, Leclerc himself mentioned how obsessed with Ferrari was with winning the championship. With a car that qualifies for the fourth row of the grid, neither of them will be able to accomplish their goals.

Leclerc was perplexed by what had happened. He had been quick all weekend, finishing just over 0.1 seconds ahead of Norris, who had won all three of his qualifying sessions. However, as the hour progressed, things got worse.

“As soon as we started to push the car more and more”, Leclerc said, “we found more and more inconsistency, which was a bit of a shame.

Through qualifying, we temporarily lost the pace. We performed well in Q1, but in Q2 we struggled, and we had to work hard to achieve lap time in Q3. We didn’t really follow the track for some reason.

Ferrari was the closest competitor to McLaren in the season, and it was a somber start to a season that everyone in Formula One had hoped would start with. Not everyone, however, agreed that it reflected the team’s true potential.

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said: “I am certainly surprised at the gap between McLaren and Ferrari. However, I would add more because I simply don’t accept that as true.

“I’m sure the red car has more potential than it could have today, for some reasons.” I think we have seen that until possibly qualifying in every single session, even in Bahrain]at pre-season testing].

Hamilton at Ferrari – his personal quest for success, and the internal battle with Leclerc – is one of the dominant narratives at the start of this season.

Another question is whether Norris can fulfill his goal to launch a season-long title challenge right away rather than play catch-up, which he had to do the previous year because McLaren didn’t start at Red Bull’s level.

McLaren did fulfill their potential in Melbourne, but there were some frightful moments.

Facing a tougher challenge from Red Bull and Max Verstappen than they – and the four-time champion himself – had expected, Norris and Oscar Piastri both made mistakes on their first laps in the final part of qualifying.

Finding the right balance between risk and reward on that crucial final lap is always much harder because the penalties for making mistakes are always much higher. That puts them under pressure on their final runs.

This was unacceptable for home favorite Piastri, who finished fourth after his first outing. Norris, though, was 10th, having had his lap deleted for exceeding track limits.

Both absolutely did it. Verstappen and Piras, who had a second to win his home grand prix in F1, improved, and Nigel Norris, who had a better time, winning by 0.084secs, pipping his team-mate.

Norris said. You have to commit, you know that’s the case. You are aware of your goal, and in many cases, you kind of hope for the best. You want to take those risks.

McLaren ended last year with their first constructors ‘ championship title for 26 years, and Stella has said they have taken some risks with” innovative “design in pushing for more performance from a car that was the fastest in the field for the second half of last year.

Even though all the teams arrived in Melbourne anticipating being in the lead, Norris on Thursday referred to as “short-sighted” how the idea that they might be a step ahead of the pack.

He was ultimately the one who had to reevaluate, at least on the quick, demanding street circuit of Albert Park.

” It really was not necessarily our expectation to have a bit of a gap to the rest of the cars, “Norris said, before pointing to the fact that the errors they made were due to the difficulty in nailing a lap in a car that has taken the team to new heights.

Verstappen might have been pleasantly surprised to be best of the rest, but the 0.385secs margin between him and Norris, while perhaps expected, will have been less palatable.

However, there are issues with his team on a number of fronts. The performance of their new hire, Liam Lawson, was added to the apparent gap between McLaren and McLaren.

After paying off Sergio Perez to leave just seven months after being given a new two-year contract, the last thing Red Bull will have wanted to see was Lawson more than 0.6secs off Verstappen on the first day’s practice.

Then, an engine problem took Lawson off the final session on Saturday, which robbed him of. It should come as no surprise that he would struggle in the qualifying process.

Even so, a first lap a second off Verstappen, and a mistake on his second – putting him on to the grass and down in 18th on the grid – was not a good start.

Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Hamilton’s replacement at Mercedes, is two places away from Lawson. Antonelli’s qualifying was hampered by his car’s floor damage, making him the third youngest driver to start an F1 race on Sunday. The other Mercedes of George Russell will start alongside Verstappen in fourth.

A straightforward debut race of the season would appeal to many. But Albert Park has a habit of throwing up curveballs, and it seems the weather may oblige on Sunday, with rain predicted.

“Norris said, “It’s a new car.” There are also a lot of unknowns and doubts about how well it will perform. It’s not always as simple as just putting on wets and having a crack.

Because it’s harder to extract and demonstrate the pace difference we had today, some of our pace might go out of style. However, if we can, we should be able to do that. I know the chances of rain have been going down, but normally wet races and inter races are pretty exciting”.

Verstappen, who would not expect to compete against McLaren in a dry race, is immediately brought into the picture by the rain, which he did not mention.

Stella’s attitude was less receptive.

“The only thing I can say about Max in the wet is that he is mega”, he said. He poses a significant threat, he says.

Hamilton has a reputation for being unique in the rain, too. But his circumstances mean he will not be treating it with the usual smile.

Hamilton said, “I have frequently enjoyed the wet.” I’m going out for the first time in the wet and uncomfortable position because I’ve never driven this car, so it’s a comfort zone for me.