Hamilton's Ferrari debut falls flat in Australia

MELBOURNE : Having dominated Formula One's headlines in the build-up to the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton was far from the spotlight at Albert Park on Sunday with a 10th-place finish on his Ferrari debut.

Even with a lack of familiarity with his new team's rain settings on a wet and windy day, Hamilton, and Ferrari fans, would have hoped for much better as the Briton launched his bid for a record eighth world championship.

Instead, it was McLaren's Lando Norris on top, Hamilton's former Mercedes team mate George Russell on the podium and Kimi Antonelli, the Italian teenager who replaced him at the "Silver Arrows", celebrating an eye-catching fourth on debut.

Earlier in the week, Hamilton turned heads at Albert Park when he arrived at the paddock in a black suit without a shirt.

But there were no bold statements on race day as he struggled to take a point and his team mate Charles Leclerc laboured to an eighth-place finish.

Frustrated by his car's performance, Hamilton had several testy exchanges with Ferrari race engineer Riccardo Adami on the team radio.

He complained he was wrong-footed by a call on the weather during the race and let down by poor strategy.

Despite the challenges, he found himself in the lead briefly as rivals pitted en masse late in the race.

But after his own late pit-stop, he ended up finishing behind an unlikely procession of drivers, including Williams's Alex Albon (fifth), Aston Martin's Lance Stroll (sixth) and Nico Hulkenberg (seventh) of Sauber.

Hamilton said he was grateful just to finish a race which saw six out of the 20 cars fail to.

"Overall, not what I was hoping for, but there was so much to get accustomed to, with all the switch settings and changes that (the team) were