Lewis Hamilton said his victory in the sprint race in Shanghai was the perfect response to those who criticised his performance on his Ferrari debut last week.
He finished 10th on his debut for Ferrari in Melbourne, the worst start for a newcomer at the team in 16 years. He rebounded in style in Shanghai, claiming pole position for the sprint race and leading every lap to take his first victory in the format.
Criticism of Hamilton’s performance in Melbourne focused on his radio exchanges with race engineer Riccardo Adami, a small portion of which was played on the world television feed. Hamilton said earlier in the weekend he was surprised by the “negativity” in response to their communications.
“The first race was difficult,” he acknowledged. “I really do feel a lot of people underestimated the steep climb it is to get into a new team, to become acclimatised within a team, understanding and communication and all sorts of things.
“The amount of critics and people I’ve heard yapping along the way, just clearly not understanding maybe because they never had the experience or are just unaware. So it felt great to come here and feel more comfortable in the car.
“In Melbourne I really didn’t feel comfortable in the car. From lap one here this weekend [I was] really feeling on it. We’ve done a great job, the engineers have done a great job, mechanics have done a great job to really fine-tune the car and it felt great today.”
Hamilton said former drivers who have been critical of him don’t know what happens within his team.
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“I’m not really talking back to them or anything like that,” he said in the FIA press conference. “It’s just that we live in such a strange time in the world. People just love to be negative at any opportunity, even with the smallest things, they’ll just be negative about it.
“I think that’s just the difficult time that we’re living in. I see certain individuals – and again, I don’t read the news, but I see bits here and there – see people that I’ve admired for years just talking out of turn. Clearly some of them really just making uneducated guesses of what’s going on. Like I was just saying, just a real lack of appreciation.
“It’s not easy moving to a new team that works completely differently, [has] completely different characteristic of car. You don’t just jump in and it’s good.
“If you look at Seb [Vettel], you look at Fernando [Alonso], they did a great job when they joined the team in their early phases, but to build long-term success with the team takes time. And that’s what I’m trying to do. I’m not trying to jump-start it, get ahead of myself. I’m just taking my time to build with this great team.”
The race was dominated by tyre management and several drivers encountered problems with graining. Hamilton’s race engineer Riccardo Adami praised his performance in looking after his rubber, which was aided by him running in clear air all race.
“I got a good start,” he said. “There’s so much grip on this new Tarmac, it’s really hard to look after these tyres, but I think everyone was struggling the same.”
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Despite his early success, Hamilton said Ferrari must not get too excited about their potential for the season ahead.
“I said the other day, Rome wasn’t built in one day. One step at a time. We’re not going to get ahead of ourselves. We cannot.
“We’ve got to continue to push. We’ve got to be diligent and just remain focused, stay calm. Most importantly, stay calm, because these moments get us all excited.
“We’ll be back at our desks after this and focused on qualifying this afternoon. It’s a long, long way. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, so we’ve just got to take our time.”
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