Where Lewis Hamilton still needs to improve to progress with Ferrari

Lewis Hamilton’s adaptation to Ferrari continued during an underwhelming weekend for the team at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

Seven-time world champion Hamilton has endured a challenging adjustment process at Ferrari after joining F1’s most famous team at the beginning of the year, having completed a blockbuster switch from rivals Mercedes.

Hamilton’s start to life at Ferrari has not gone to plan but he feels he has made encouraging progress since F1’s summer break, though this has been overshadowed by Ferrari’s lack of overall competitiveness.

After finishing eighth and one place ahead of teammate Charles Leclerc in Baku, the 40-year-old Briton detailed where he can still make improvements.

"I think there’s still some improvements to make in terms of how aggressive I can be,” Hamilton explained.

“The car has been quite snappy, so still not 100% confident under braking when I’m attacking on the brakes. In the last race, I was, but in this race, didn’t feel it so much with the setup that we ended up having.

"It’s kind of crazy, because we’ve been progressing yet we’ve not had results, really in the last few races. But there’s not like no progress so I think we’re able to do a good weekend and a good result.”

Speaking to Sky Sports F1, Hamilton added: “It was a disappointing result, as I mentioned yesterday, to feeling so optimistic.

“I think through practice after P2, honestly, I felt so good in the car and I think ultimately in the wrong direction with the car. But our ultimate pace in the race was just not on par with the guys up ahead of us.

"But qualifying clearly is so important if you look at where the Williams was. They did a great job, congratulations to them. What an amazing result.

“I'm happy I moved forwards from 12th but couldn't really care less for that position.”

Hamilton's head-to-head defeat to Leclerc

Leclerc has officially come out on top in the head-to-head battle for supremacy at Ferrari.

The Monegasque has beaten Hamilton in 12 of the 15 races both drivers have finished.

Leclerc has also outclassed Hamilton 13-4 in the qualifying head-to-heads.

Leclerc has finished on the podium five times, while Hamilton is yet to record a rostrum appearance in his first 17 grands prix for Ferrari.

After Azerbaijan, Leclerc sits fifth in the drivers’ championship on 165 points, one place and 44 points ahead of Hamilton.