Lewis Hamilton’s ’embarrassing’ Ferrari debut is savaged by former F1 supervisor… who blasts the veteran for his tempo and ‘dogmatic’ strategy over the radio on the Australian Grand Prix

Lewis Hamilton has been heavily criticised over his ’embarrassing’ Ferrari debut at the Australian Grand Prix last weekend.

Hamilton, 40, completed his first race weekend at the Scuderia with a 10th place finish at the chequered, having at one stage led the Grand Prix in Melbourne.

The disappointing result saw Hamilton, who qualified eighth heading into Sunday, finish two places behind new Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc and seven positions back from former Mercedes partner George Russell, who joined race winner Lando Norris and Max Verstappen on the podium.

While off the mark in terms of points, the seven-time world champion would have been hoping for a better start to life at Ferrari following his seismic switch from the Silver Arrows in the off-season, with both he and Leclerc well off the pace of McLaren and Red Bull.

Former Williams manager Peter Windsor has criticised Hamilton in the wake of his disappointing weekend, unhappy with the manner in which he fell off the pace and stuck to his guns over the Ferrari radio with race engineer Riccardo Adami.

As he struggled to make progress towards the latter stages of the race, Hamilton could be heard repeatedly saying ‘leave it to me’ to Adami after being offered guidance from the pitwall. 

Lewis Hamilton has been heavily criticised over his ’embarrassing’ Ferrari debut last weekend

The seven-time world champion finished 10th on the grid on a tricky first race at the Scuderia

Former Williams manager Peter Windsor has blasted Hamilton’s pace and manner on the radio

Reflecting on the moment on his YouTube channel, Windsor said: ‘There were a lot of weird radio transmissions going on with Ferrari, almost becoming uncomfortable with Charles Leclerc giving his engineer a hard time. 

‘And they were giving Lewis a lot of instructions on how to get past Alex Albon, to do with the DRS and various switches. He kept saying, “I can handle it, I can handle it”.

‘Well, Lewis, you didn’t handle it and you never got past Alex Albon. For a Ferrari driver – admittedly in his first Grand Prix [with the team] – to be outraced by Alex Albon in the Williams is a bit embarrassing, to be honest. 

‘I was a bit surprised that Lewis was taking a rather dogmatic approach on the radio because I’m sure on the pitwall they were thinking, “what’s going on here, why can’t he get past him?”‘

Both Leclerc and Hamilton would have likely fared better in Melbourne had Ferrari reacted quicker to the deluge late on.

The Scuderia chose not to pit their drivers until the last minute, which caused both Hamilton and Leclerc to lose significant ground on slick tyres.

Questioning the strategy after the Grand Prix, Leclerc said: ‘It was a tough race and there are things we have to review and work on.

‘We weren’t the fastest out there but in such weather conditions, there was a chance of scoring some big points which we didn’t capitalise on today.

Hamilton was heard frequently saying ‘leave it to me’ to race engineer Riccardo Adami (above)

But in wet conditions, Hamilton (left) struggled to make progress and dropped down to 10th

‘There are two things we have to look into. The first is easy, it was my mistake.

‘The second is something we will sort out as a team, looking into our decisions and making sure we make the right call if the situation comes up again.’