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Lewis Hamilton has declared he is fired-up and optimistic in his belief that Ferrari will be in the world championship fight with Mercedes after the new Formula One season opened in Australia on Sunday.
The race in Melbourne was won by Mercedes’ George Russell, with his teammate Kimi Antonelli in second but Ferrari claimed third and fourth for Charles Leclerc and Hamilton. Both drivers executed superb starts to make up places to first and third respectively and for the opening 12 laps were very much in the fight with Russell at the front of the field.
Ultimately they were not in the mix for the win after Mercedes took advantage of a virtual safety car to take a cheap pitstop while Ferrari chose not to do so. Nonetheless the Ferrari did show impressive pace and a reinvigorated Hamilton maintained he felt the they could yet catch the leaders.
“The team did a great job overall,” he said. “There are lots of positives to take. A couple of more laps and I would have had Charles, so I know we can be fighting for podiums. We’re not as fast as Mercedes but we’re right in the fight. We’ve got a lot of work to do to catch them but it’s not impossible.”
After he endured a trying debut year with Ferrari Hamilton had closed 2025 somewhat jaded and disconsolate, having described it as a “nightmare” season in which he failed to score a podium for the first time in his career. Having reset over the winter Hamilton returned eager to enjoy the fray again with the cars under the new regulations much more to his liking. In Melbourne they opened well and the seven-time champion also acknowledged that the team would analyse their strategic decision-making process.
“I feel great,” he said. “We got a third and fourth and ultimately Mercedes were quicker than us. We need to see if stopping would have been better. I definitely thought we should have come in or, at least one of us, to cover the Mercedes. We will look to see what we can do better.”
Mercedes had expected to be the class of the field and duly did have the advantage when they were running in clean air but Hamilton’s quickest 10 laps were on a par with Antonelli and the Mercedes team principal, Toto Wolff, confirmed the threat Ferrari posed.
“It was a three-way fight at a certain stage between the two Ferraris and George, and eventually Kimi caught up,” Wolff said. “The race pace at the end was very encouraging from our side, but at the beginning, there was nothing between Ferrari and Mercedes. For me, the prevailing feeling is now we have a fight on our hands with Ferrari.”
The Ferrari team principal, Fred Vasseur, also echoed Hamilton’s feelings that his team could yet bridge the gap to Mercedes.
“It’s good to have two cars fighting at the top,” he said. “We know that we have a very long list of improvements but it’s good for us. The result of the season will be based on the capacity that we have to develop, to bring upgrades, to produce quickly.
“This will be key for the season for everybody on the grid. I prefer to start the season in a good shape than in a bad shape, but it’s still a long way to go.”
After local hero Oscar Piastri suffered heartbreak in front of his home crowd in Melbourne when the Australian crashed out in the formation lap to the grid, his team principal, Andrea Stella, backed his man to recover strongly.
Piastri was making his way to the grid 40 minutes before the off when he rode the kerb at turn four and was spun into the wall, severely damaging his car. Cold tyres and lack of grip on the kerb were factors as was an unexpected surge in power after a gear shift which can be a factor of the way the new cars behave.
Piastri held his hands up for the incident and Stella said he would bounce back at the next round in China this weekend. “Very unfortunate,” he said. “Definitely a tough moment for him in front of the Australian crowd.
“Oscar [is] very tough guy mentally. He will use all this to get even more concentrated and determined starting from China. We will make sure that we all face this in a united way. We are a team in any situation that may involve any of our team.”
