Martin Brundle left ‘alarmed’ by Lewis Hamilton after tough Australian GP start | F1 | Sport
Martin Brundle was left concerned by Lewis Hamilton‘s body language after his FP1 debut with Ferrari at the Australian Grand Prix. The Brit left the garage with his helmet still on, causing concern for the Sky Sports F1 commentator. Hamilton ended FP1 12th in the running order, six-tenths behind Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc and 12th overall.
Lando Norris‘ time at the top of the standings was over eight-tenths faster than the seven-time world champion’s. During a flying lap in FP1, the Brit was left frustrated, reporting to race engineer Riccardo Adami that he was “struggling to turn the car”. After the session, Brundle expressed his concern.
“What alarmed me a little bit was that Lewis came out the back of the garage wearing his crash helmet,” Brundle said. “Which I never think is a good sign, having done that myself as well. I think he’ll be a little bit frustrated with that first session. He looked pretty good early on, but it depends if he had some issues, we’ll find out later.”
The second practice session was more positive for the Brit, although he was still over four-tenths slower than Leclerc’s best time. Long-run simulations placed Hamilton closer to his Ferrari team-mate and weekend favourite Norris, though.
“It’s not to be at the limit on one session,” team principal Fred Vasseur said after FP1, brushing off any concerns. “It’s not a matter of speed. The target is for him to know everybody in the team, to discover the software, the process, the system.
“I think that we have something very similar to Mercedes, but at the end of the day, perhaps not with the same name or the same way to use them and be just a learning process. But we did one or two test day with the TPC one month or two months ago. It was a good way to approach it, but nothing compared to a race weekend.
“He’s on this process. You can’t draw a conclusion of the first session. I have absolutely no doubt that he will be able to perform and to perform soon. And last year, I think that Carlos was P8 or P9 in practice, and he won the race.”
Elsewhere, McLaren enjoyed two strong sessions, but there were concerns surrounding Mercedes and Red Bull‘s pace. The Silver Arrows looked as fast as anyone on medium compound runs but suffered horrible degradation on the soft-compound tyres.
