Lewis Hamilton’s team radio during Australian Grand Prix practice have emerged – and they have concerned fans.
Hamilton’s second season with Ferrari is now underway, with free practice 1 and free practice 2 completed in Melbourne on Friday.
The seven-time world champion had an encouraging day, placing second behind team-mate Charles Leclerc in FP1 before a fourth-placed finish in FP2.
And a practice start at the end of FP2 again showed that Ferrari appear to have an advantage over other teams when it comes to getting off the line well.
Hamilton’s current race engineer is Carlo Santi, who worked with Kimi Raikkonen as performance and then race engineer at Ferrari.
The Scuderia reassigned Riccardo Adami, who fulfilled the role last season, to their junior academy, with Santi stepping up on an interim basis.
Ferrari are yet to appoint a permanent successor to Adami, something which Hamilton described as potentially being ‘detrimental‘ to his season.
The 41-year-old therefore finds himself in something of an unusual situation in Formula 1, with race engineer appointmenrts normally confirmed by teams either during the winter break or as an immediate change mid-season.
Power limit is between 2 and 3. Same second sector. Same third sector,” Santi said.
“2 and 3 is not helping. Is it apex speed? Is it exit?” Hamilton asked.
When told once again that it was ‘power limit’, Hamilton said: “That does not help me, mate. Is it the exit or is it the apex? I don’t care about power limit.”
“Okay. Is apex too high or too low? Give me some feedback,” he added, after Santi had said it was ‘the apex’.
Communication improved as the session went on, though, appearing to allay any fears that fans might have had.
Santi later relayed to Hamilton that he losing time on apex speed in turn three on another lap.