Toto Wolff always said it was going to be strange watching Lewis Hamilton race in the red of Ferrari – and it seems the Mercedes boss has still not quite come to terms with it.
Hamilton, who won six of his seven F1 world championships with Mercedes before leaving for Maranello this winter, struggled on his debut for the Scuderia at the Australian Grand Prix last weekend.
A few miscommunications with his new race engineer Riccardo Adami, a bold tyre call that did not pay off and a lowly 10th place finish was not the sort of start the Briton would have hoped for down under.
But, in former boss Wolff, Hamilton did at least have one extra, unexpected cheerleader on the pit wall as he was quick to check his pace as well as that of Mercedes duo George Russell and rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli.
“When I was looking at the screens at times, the way I looked at it was like we had three drivers,” said Wolff.
“Because I was looking at R, U, S, I was looking at A, N, T, and I was looking at H, A, M, and you realise H, A, M is actually with Ferrari and is not with us anymore.
“So it still feels, it was such a long time, it's logical, you cannot just say he's gone and you don't care anymore.
“We very much care how he's doing, but obviously on track he's the competition and we need to beat the competition.”
Once Wolff has lost that muscle memory of checking for Hamilton’s progress, he will still no doubt monitor McLaren’s Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri given their speed advantage in Melbourne.
“I think it's a solid first weekend,” said Wolff, with Russell finishing third behind winner Norris and Max Verstappen, while Antonelli was reinstated to an impressive fourth after a successful appeal against a five-second penalty.
“But looking at it always from the glass half-empty side, you have to say that the pace of the McLaren is just very strong. Something which we need to understand, the way they are able to manage the tyres and extract performance - we need to get better.
“If we want to fight, on merit, for race victories and for a championship, then there's definitely something which we need to find.”
