Ferrari had an underwhelming start to their F1 2025 campaign, as Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc had a difficult season-opening Australian GP. Hamilton managed to finish in 10th position, the final point place. On the other hand, Leclerc came eighth, bagging four points only.
Leclerc and Hamilton were in sixth and eighth positions respectively, when rain struck. The downpour began to hit parts of the race track, with 13 laps to go.
But instead the pair decided to keep the slick tyres longer than their rivals in the late stages. At the end of lap 44 when Oscar Piastri spun off completely, race leader Lando Norris went straight for the pit lane and changed to intermediate tyres. Max Verstappen took the lead by staying out, and then the downpour increased, which also led the Red Bull driver to change tyres two laps later.
Leclerc and Hamilton remained until lap 47, and by then the Safety Car had been called for two crashes. Hamilton was second and Leclerc was third, with the latter having spun on lap 44. Meanwhile, Norris remained in pole position. Then Ferrari decided to pit ahead of the race restart, changing to intermediates, which sent their drivers to ninth and 10th respectively.
Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur accepted that it was a tactical mistake, when asked about their tyre strategy.
Speaking to reporters, he said, “It was a strange situation because sector one and two were still dry and sector three was completely wet and it was a kind of a bet I think that Red Bull and us, we bet on the fact that we have to stay on track and to wait for the last part of the race with slicks.”
“When Mercedes and McLaren, but McLaren it’s also because they went out that they pitted two laps before. We made the wrong call because I think the best option was to pit the same lap as Max and we made the wrong call at this stage,” he added.
Meanwhile, Hamilton, after rejoining in ninth place, was heard saying on the team radio to new race engineer Riccardo Adami that he assumed hearing that it wasn’t going to rain a lot, and that they missed a good opportunity. On the other hand, Leclerc was told by his race engineer that the downpour was going to increase.
Commenting on the two drivers receiving different messages, Vasseur defended his team. He said, “Yes, but this is very difficult that we don’t have a sensor for the rain, it means that it’s more a feeling, it’s what we can see on the screen, what we can have on the radar, it’s true from corner to corner.”
“I think we were all surprised by the quantity of rain at this stage of the race, McLaren first, and now we did debate to stay on track with the slicks and to survive, but it was the wrong call.”
Hamilton’s Ferrari debut didn’t go according to plan and the British driver will be extremely disappointed. Lando Norris won the race, with Verstappen finishing in second position, and George Russell came third.
