Never in a position to employ "Hammer-time", according to seven-time champ Lewis Hamilton what advice he did receive today fell short of the mark.
The transition was never going to be easy, but on his first outing with Ferrari, Hamilton was clearly missing the guidance of Pete 'Bono' Bonnington.
Over the course of the race fans heard several terse exchanges between Hamilton and his engineer, Riccardo Adami, the Briton subsequently admitting he felt the team had missed an opportunity.
"I'm just grateful I kept it out of the wall," the Briton told reporters at race end. "It felt like I was in the deep, deep end today," he admitted. "Everything is new, from the first time I'm driving this car in the rain, the car was behaving a lot different to what I've experienced in the past. The power unit, all the steering functions, all the things that are thrown to you, you're trying to juggle all these new things."
Clearly struggling, early in the race Hamilton asked Adami where he was slow, claiming that he was struggling with driveability and that the car was "snappy".
"Turns 11 and 12, you can use K1 when you are close," he was told. "Leave me to it, please," he replied.
However, when told "K1 available", the Briton snapped back: "Yes, I know. Leave me to it, please."
He subsequently claimed he had lost gear sync, however, when given advice, he said: "Please leave it, just leave me to it with the DRS. It's not an issue."
"Try to hold the K1," he was advised. "Just for practice. I know it's difficult."
"I'm not close enough!" Hamilton insisted. "I'm not close enough. When I'm close, I'll do it."
When the rain began to fall again - ironically on Lap 44 - Ferrari opted to leave its drivers out on slicks feeling that it would soon pass. It didn't, and by the time Hamilton and his teammate were finally ordered to pit they had slipped to ninth and tenth (Leclerc).
"I thought you said it wasn't going to rain much? We just missed a big opportunity there," said Hamilton. "Understood," came the reply.
Speaking at race end Hamilton sought to play down the exchanges, saying: "It was very tricky. It went a lot worse than I thought it would go, the car was really hard to drive today. I'm grateful I kept it out of the wall, that's where it wanted to go most of the time.
"Unfortunately, at the end they said it was just a short shower," he said of the strategic error, a situation devotees of the Scuderia will be familiar with, "so I was like, I'm going to hold it out, and the rest of the track was dry, so I was like, I'm going to stick it out as long as I can and keep it on the track. They didn't say more was coming. And all of a sudden, more came.
"So I think it was just lacking that bit of information at the end. But yeah, I didn't have any confidence today unfortunately. I'm going to make some changes next week to the car, to the setup."
When pushed on those exchanges however, he said: "Generally, I'm not one that likes a lot of information in the race, unless I need it, I'll ask for it.
"He did his best today," he added, referring to Adami, "and we'll move forwards for sure. It was the first race, the first time that we have to communicate between the pit-wall and the car. We can do a better job and know each other more, for sure it was not a clean one at all, the strategy was difficult and we need to find a better way to communicate between the car and the pit-wall but we will learn from race one and it is not an issue."
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