Hamilton <\/a>only ran it on the penultimate day of the final test in Bahrain and Ferrari did not use it at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix as they finished third and fourth.<\/p>\n But Ferrari has brought its radical rear wing to China, where it will be used for the first time during a grand prix race weekend.<\/p>\n \u201cWe did a full day or so on the wing, so I think we got what we needed,\u201d the seven-time world champion told media including Crash.net<\/a> in Shanghai.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m so grateful for the team, because it was actually supposed to be later down the line and they worked really hard to develop it and get it brought here.<\/p>\n \u201cThat for me is just great to see that the team are fighting and the team are pushing and really working overtime back at the factory to be able to bring upgrades, because that\u2019s the name of the game.<\/p>\n \u201cLast year I didn\u2019t get to see the team\u2019s full potential in that mode, because we were focusing on this year\u2019s car.\u201d<\/p>\n On the name of Ferrari\u2019s rear wing, Hamilton added: \u201cI don\u2019t know if it has an official name\u2026 Someone said Macarena. I have know idea why\u2026 It\u2019s the flip-flop wing.\u201d<\/p>\n Development war key to catching Mercedes Hamilton is much happier with Ferrari’s new F1 car<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Mercedes<\/a> backed up its pre-season favourite tag by claiming a dominant one-two in Melbourne, with Charles Leclerc <\/a>finishing over 15 seconds behind victor George Russell<\/a>.<\/p>\n While acknowledging Mercedes is the benchmark, Hamilton expressed confidence at the season-opener that catching the Silver Arrows would not be \u201cimpossible\u201d.<\/p>\n Ferrari has started F1\u2019s new era as the second-fastest team and Hamilton has believes the competitive order will ultimately be determined by the development war.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s really dependent on development. The development rate is very steep for everyone at the moment. So it\u2019s going to be interesting to see who brings upgrades over these next races,\u201d Hamilton explained.<\/p>\n \u201cYou saw in qualifying it was eight tenths. In the race I think it was between four and five tenths when they are in clear air, which is a huge gap.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s really going to be interesting to see the development. We\u2019re going to try and catch them up and I believe we can, but it\u2019s not going to be short thing.\u201d<\/p>\n On Mercedes\u2019 advantage, Hamilton added: \u201cIt seems mostly on straights so I think it will be everywhere on the straights.<\/p>\n \u201cIt seemed more so when they opened up the SM [Straight Mode], that\u2019s when they take a huge step. So whatever is going on in that phase is an area we need to understand.<\/p>\n \u201cThey seem to have a little bit more deployment, so less de-rating at the end of straights than some of us. So we\u2019ve just got to work on trying to eke out more.\u201d<\/p>\n Subscribe to our F1 Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lewis Hamilton says he is excited to debut Ferrari\u2019s innovative \u2018upside down\u2019 rear wing at the Formula 1…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536061,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[64,63,817,826,823,85],"class_list":["post-536060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-ferrari","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Hamilton](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/xpb_1400554_hires.jpg\")
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