'Please leave it!': Tense radio exchanges uncover Lewis Hamilton's Ferrari frustration

Lewis Hamilton's first race in a Ferrari was full of frustration and a couple of exchanges on team radio made the seven-time world champion's irritation clear.

The 40-year-old finished 10th in Sunday's Australian Grand Prix to collect only one point in the drivers' championship.

His new teammate, Charles Leclerc, didn't do much better with an eighth-placed finish that yielded four points, and the Monte Carlo native had a radio exchange that was crabby, bizarre and humorous.

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On lap 14 at Melbourne's Albert Park, at which point Hamilton sat eighth, Ferrari engineer Riccardo Adami peppered the British driver with instructions about the drag reduction system, more commonly referred to as DRS.

"You can use K1 [an engine setting] when you are close," Adami said, to which Hamilton replied: "Leave me to it, please".

"K1 available," Adami repeated.

"Yes, I know," Hamilton shot back. "Leave me to it, please."

Adami continued to hammer the instructions later in the race, irking Hamilton further.

"Please leave it!" he yelled.

"... Just leave me to it with the DRS. It's not an issue."

Despite Hamilton's pleading, Adami piped up with the same instruction several laps later, saying: "Try to hold the K1. Just for practice. I know it's difficult".

Hamilton's patience had worn thin.

"I'm not close enough!" he snapped.

"I'm not close enough [to the car in front]. When I'm close, I'll do it."

Another combative radio exchange played out on lap 49, as intermittent rain challenged both tactical nous and temperaments.

During one safety car period, Ferrari opted to keep Hamilton on hard tyres as other teams brought their drivers in to swap to intermediates.

The decision sent Hamilton into the lead, but his time at the front was short-lived.

"I thought you said it wasn't gonna rain much … We just lost a big opportunity there," vented Hamilton.

"Understood," replied Adami.

"What position am I in?" asked Hamilton. "Nine again?"

Adami: "P9".

Hamilton's language then turned foul, for which he quickly apologised.

"Sorry, didn't realise my radio was on," he said.

Hamilton admitted after the race, which was won by McLaren's Lando Norris, that his first race as a Ferrari driver was "very tricky" and "really, really hard".

"For me, I'm just grateful that I kept it out of the wall, because that's really where it wanted to go most of the time," Hamilton said.

"But a lot to take from it, and also just getting acclimatised to the new power unit in the wet conditions, all of the settings that it requires, a different way of driving, a different set-up on the steering wheel.

"Obviously I hung out as long as I could, got in the lead at one point, and I think just the guidance in terms of how much more rain was coming was just missing there. So I think we missed out."

Six drivers failed to finish as wet conditions caused chaos at Albert Park.

Red Bull Racing duo Liam Lawson and Isack Hadjar, Kick Sauber's Gabriel Bortoleto, Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso, Williams' Carlos Sainz and Australian Alpine rookie Jack Doohan all bombed out.

Meanwhile, Australia's McLaren prodigy, Oscar Piastri, began the race in second, dropped to third, regained his original position, and spun off the track. He struggled home in ninth place to earn just two points in his home grand prix.

While the rain didn't cause major drama for Leclerc, it did rile him up.

"Is there a leakage?" Leclerc asked over radio, to which engineer Bryan Bozzi replied: "A leakage of what?".

"I have the seat full of water! Like, full of water!" Leclerc explained, to which Bozzi quipped: "Must be the water".

"Let's add that to the words of wisdom," Leclerc fired back.

The exchange, unsurprisingly, has gone viral.

The Formula 1 season will continue with China's Shanghai Grand Prix on March 23.