MELBOURNE: An upbeat Lewis Hamilton said Ferrari were right in the fight for the Formula One championship despite being outpaced by Mercedes in the Australian Grand Prix on Sunday.
George Russell led a Mercedes 1-2 ahead of teammate Kimi Antonelli in the season-opener, crossing more than 15 seconds ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in third and Hamilton in fourth.
“I’m genuinely really proud of the team,” the seven-times world champion told Sky.
“I think we’ve done an amazing job to get the car to where it is. Of course we’re not as fast as Mercedes, we’ve got work to do, but we’re right in the fight.”
Hamilton said Ferrari’s race pace was stronger than qualifying suggested, having started seventh on the grid.
“I think all weekend I’ve been really, really strong, but qualifying didn’t show the true pace,” he said.
“We had a few problems through qualifying which meant that I was further back than I should have been.”
Once the race began, Hamilton said he felt competitive from the outset and believed he might have had his first podium with Ferrari if the cars were on the track for a bit longer.
“It was a really, really fun race and it felt good for me,” he said.
“I was obviously closing the gap right at the end to Charles. A couple more laps and I think I would have had him — maybe one or two more laps.”
While conceding Mercedes hold a clear advantage in the early season, Hamilton said the deficit was not insurmountable.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do to catch Mercedes, but it’s not impossible,” he said.
“I do believe we can close the gap. It’s not going to be easy because it’s quite significant, particularly on a single lap. We need to find out whether it’s power or battery power.
“But the car is just as quick through the corners, so we’ve just got to keep pushing.”
Ferrari can reel Mercedes in, says Hamilton
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Ferrari can reel Mercedes in, says Hamilton
- Hamilton said Ferrari’s race pace was stronger than qualifying suggested, having started seventh on the grid
Siniakova ends Andreeva Indian Wells defense in third round
- Siniakova, a former doubles number one, will face either Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina or American Ashlyn Krueger for a place in the quarter-finals
INDIAN WELLS, United States: Unseeded Katerina Siniakova ended a frustrated Mirra Andreeva’s Indian Wells title defense on Monday, rallying for a 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 victory over the eighth-ranked Russian.
The 18-year-old Andreeva had opened her repeat bid with an imperious 6-0, 6-0 demolition of Solana Sierra.
But she was in trouble early and often against 44th-ranked Siniakova in a rollercoaster contest that featured seven service breaks for each player and 43 break chances between them.
When she sailed a swinging volley long to surrender the second set, Andreeva threw her racquet in disgust.
She regrouped to break Siniakova for a 3-2 lead in the third, but Siniakova won the next four games.
The Czech saved a pair of break points in the final game before sealing the match with a shot that struck the net cord and dribbled over as Andreeva could only watch, disappointment sparking another outburst from the Russian as she departed the court.
Siniakova, a former doubles number one, will face either Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina or American Ashlyn Krueger for a place in the quarter-finals.
In other early matches, fifth-seeded American Jessica Pegula shook off a slow start to beat Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko 4-6, 6-3, 6-2.
Pegula, coming off her fourth career WTA 1000 title at Dubai last month, fired 11 aces with just one double fault as she rallied for the win.
“I think today I had to kind of snap myself back and kind of lock in to not let that get away from me,” said Pegula, who said she was in danger of letting negativity and frustration get the better of her.
“I didn’t think I was playing bad. It was just letting a couple chances, couple breaks here and there (get away), maybe a couple shots that I could have been more aggressive on.”
Later on Stadium Court, world number two Iga Swiatek took on Greece’s Maria Sakkari — the woman she beat in the Indian Wells finals in 2022 and 2024.
Australian Open champion Elena Rybakina, who lifted the Indian wells Trophy in 2023, played Ukraine’s Marta Kostyuk in the final match of the night.
