Ferrari team boss Frederic Vasseur said he ‘liked’ the fact Lewis Hamilton was disappointed about his qualifying result at the Bahrain Grand Prix as he praised his driver’s mindset and subsequent “very strong” recovery drive.
Hamilton cut a downbeat figure after qualifying ninth at Sakhir last Saturday, describing his performance as “poor” and apologising to the team for “not doing a good enough job”.
But the seven-time world champion’s race-day drive to fifth place offered more promise, with Hamilton suggesting afterwards: “I think I’ve figured out how the car likes to drive.”
Although he claimed a brilliant pole and win in the short-form Sprint format at the season’s second round in China last month, Hamilton has otherwise trailed new team-mate Charles Leclerc so far and openly admitted he is taking time to adapt to the driving style required for Ferrari’s car and new ways of working after over a decade at Mercedes.
And speaking after the race, an understanding Vasseur said: “You won’t replace 12 years of collaboration in two weeks or in two races. For sure, we need to improve but this is true for everybody in the team, in the paddock, that the DNA for our sport is to try to do a better job.
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“It’s good to have Lewis with this mindset ‘I have to improve also myself, and to adapt myself to the car’ and we will adapt the car to Lewis but he had to do a step. This is done in a positive way and a very constructive way between us.
“The fact he was a bit down yesterday evening, I like it. If he comes back and says ‘I’m 10th, it’s a shame’, so he was disappointed because he was better in the rest of the weekend.
“In F1 today, if you make a mistake you lose six or seven positions. That was not the case three or four years ago.
“We have to stay calm in terms of judgment of the performance, because sometimes, for almost nothing, you can change a good weekend into a very poor one.
“I appreciated the direction of Lewis on Saturday and I did my best to push him a little bit, and on Sunday he was in very good shape.”
Vasseur said Hamilton’s post-qualifying disappointment was normal and that he saw positive signs from the Briton’s performance over the rest of the weekend.
“I understand his frustration from qualifying because if you look at all the practice sessions, then Q1 and Q2, he was plus or minus one tenth from Charles,” he added.
“Then you arrive to Q3, the first lap is deleted and the second one he made a mistake and you pay the price. For sure, a bit of frustration for him and us also.
“He had a very strong recovery, a solid race that he came back. I think the race time compared to the top two or three was almost similar.”