Lewis Hamilton’s debut race weekend in Ferrari colours at the Australian Grand Prix has begun with a steady start, as the seven-time world champion continues to adjust to his new surroundings.

In the first practice session, Hamilton finished 12th, six-tenths of a second behind his new team-mate, Charles Leclerc. However, he showed signs of progress in the second practice, improving to fifth place, although Leclerc topped the timesheets.

Despite the initial gap, Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur has dismissed any concerns over Hamilton’s pace, stressing that his integration into the team is a gradual process rather than something that can be achieved overnight.

“The target is for him to know everybody in the team, to discover the software, the process, the system,” he told Motorsport.com.

While there are similarities between Mercedes, for which the Briton raced for more than a decade and won six of his seven titles with, and Ferrari, Vasseur acknowledged that Hamilton still has to adapt.

“I’m really convinced that we have something very similar to Mercedes, but at the end of the day, perhaps not with the same name or the same way to use them,” he explained.

To help ease the transition, Ferrari has incorporated Hamilton into its Testing of Previous Cars (TPC) programme. These sessions, held in January and February, allowed him to familiarise himself with Ferrari’s procedures while driving older machinery.

“It’s just a learning process, but we did one or two days there with the TPC, one month or two months ago. It was a good way to approach it,” Vasseur noted.

However, he admitted that no amount of testing can truly replicate the demands of a race weekend. “Nothing compares to the race weekend, you know that. We have to go through it, but I’m not worried at all about this.”

Despite this period of adjustment, Vasseur has no doubt that Hamilton will soon be performing at his usual high level.

“I have absolutely no doubt that he will be able to perform, and to perform soon. Last year, I think that Carlos [Sainz] was P8 or P9 in free practice and he won the race,” he concluded.