Brundle: Hamilton start to Ferrari career disappointing by any metric

Brundle, in his Sky Sports F1 column following the F1 season-opening race in Melbourne last Sunday, commented on the seven-time F1 champion's start of his career in Red.

Hamilton was outqualified by teammate Charles Leclerc, eighth vs. seventh, and while he led briefly when the rain wreaked havoc over the Albert Park track, he ended his race in tenth. Leclerc finished eighth on a weekend where Ferrari failed to maintain the early pace promise they showed.

What made matters more interesting was the tense radio exchange between Hamilton and his Ferrari race engineer, Ricciardo Adami, which showed that the Briton is far from feeling at home in his new Italian environment.

Brundle wrote: "Despite lots of happy words, and reasons why he had to learn his steering wheel and other new aspects, Lewis Hamilton had a disappointing start to his Ferrari career by any metric.

"Eighth on the grid behind his teammate Leclerc, losing out a little in the first corner and following Alex Albon's Williams for what seemed like an age, and then being passed around the outside of the fast turn nine by a spectacularly recovering Piastri on the final lap—consigning Lewis to one point in 10th place—was not where he should be," he explained.

Weighing in on the Hamilton/Adami radio exchange, the retired F1 driver added: "I don't understand why Lewis was so angsty with his engineer Riccardo Adami, who I felt was simply trying to pass over relevant and helpful information.

"It all really fell apart for Ferrari when they rolled the dice on dry tyres on a wet track and lost out heavily on track position for both drivers, and they left Australia seventh in the championship," Brundle concluded.