Ted Kravitz believes Charles Leclerc shouldn’t underestimate Lewis Hamilton’s race craft heading into their first F1 race as teammates at subsequent weekend’s Australian Grand Prix.
The 2025 F1 season lastly kicks off subsequent weekend at Albert Park, with Hamilton set to race for Ferrari for the primary time in F1.
Hamilton has loved an in depth testing programme forward of the brand new season, with a number of runs in older equipment.
Final week, all 10 F1 groups had been current in Bahrain for official pre-season testing throughout three days.
Ferrari look like a step behind McLaren in pure efficiency, however a real understanding of the pecking order will solely grow to be clear after qualifying in Melbourne.
Hamilton joins Ferrari on the again of his most disappointing season to this point in F1, significantly in qualifying.
Hamilton solely managed to out-qualify George Russell 4 instances throughout 24 races – making it simply the second qualifying head-to-head defeat of his profession after 2014 in opposition to Nico Rosberg.
When previewing the brand new season, Kravitz assessed the teammate dynamic between Leclerc and Hamilton – and the way that may affect the previous.
“There’s an unknown. Charles Leclerc has seen Lewis Hamilton shut up over the past couple of months,” Kravitz stated.
“He’s understood learn how to drive the automotive. He’s understood seemingly how Hamilton, who was saying he nonetheless has to be taught precisely how each little device that he has at his disposal by way of differential change, brake steadiness adjustment or learn how to begin the automotive with the clutch – issues like that.
“It’s second nature to Leclerc, however Hamilton remains to be studying how Ferrari likes to do these issues within the automotive and the multitude of buttons they’ve obtained.
“In case you may say that may be a little bit of a bonus on Leclerc’s facet, possibly. Leclerc would underestimate Lewis Hamilton’s race craft at his peril.
He is aware of to not underestimate Lewis. Lewis is at his finest on a Sunday afternoon. So Leclerc is ready to see what sort of teammate he’s going to have in Australia.”
Are Ferrari on the again foot heading to Australia?
It wasn’t a seamless check for Ferrari in Bahrain, with Hamilton unable to finish a race simulation on the ultimate day of testing.
Hamilton’s last day was halted early after Ferrari discovered an “anomaly” on the info.
For Leclerc, he managed to finish a full race simulation alongside Lando Norris and Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who had been circulating on the identical time.
Leclerc was, on common, round 0.5s slower than Norris throughout a full race distance.
Whereas all of the testing caveats stay as a result of unusually cool observe temperatures and uncertainty about which energy modes had been getting used, McLaren appear to be they’re the favourites heading into the season-opener.
