Ferrari team principal Frédéric Vasseur is pleased with Lewis Hamilton’s turnaround. The Ferrari driver said at the end of his disappointing debut year at Ferrari that he was completely done with the season, but is much more combative after the Australian GP. Hamilton was even one of the few drivers who enjoyed the opening race, and according to Vasseur, that translated into a good race weekend: ‘It is good to have two cars that are also competing at the top’.
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Lewis Hamilton qualified in seventh place in Melbourne, but was able to make up three places on Sunday. According to the seven-time world champion, there could have been even more in it if the race had lasted a few laps longer. “One more lap and I would have overtaken Charles,” an enthusiastic Hamilton even said after the race.
Ferrari team principal Frédéric Vasseur was also delighted with Hamilton’s race in Australia. “I am very pleased with Lewis’s performance this weekend. But I think we should stop saying that he performs one weekend and not the other,” Vasseur told the media present afterwards. “It’s a sport, sometimes we have a good session, sometimes not. (On Saturday, ed.), during qualifying, I was honestly disappointed as a team. Today went much better… It’s part of it.”
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On to Shanghai
Hamilton often came out on the losing end against his teammate Charles Leclerc during his debut season. After success during the sprint race in China, there wasn’t a single trip to the podium for the world champion, while the Monegasque was able to take a place on the rostrum seven times. However, in Melbourne, Hamilton was almost the only driver who ‘greatly enjoyed’ the race, the first driven with Formula 1 cars that would better suit the Briton’s driving style. “It is good to have two cars that are also competing at the top,” Vasseur added. “We know we have a very long list of areas for improvement. That applies to us, but also to everyone on the grid.”
“This is just the beginning of a new era for Formula 1, with cars that are very different from those we have raced in recent years,” the team principal also says in the preview for the Chinese GP. “That means every session is an opportunity to learn more about managing them, both in terms of setup and energy consumption. There were encouraging signs in Australia, but the level is very high and there is still a lot of work to be done. In Shanghai, we want to continue making progress, collect data, stay focused, and deliver a flawless weekend, from start to finish.”
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