Hamilton retained the eighth position he achieved yesterday in qualifying at the start, while Leclerc managed to overtake Yuki Tsunoda and Alexander Albon right from the start to move up to fifth.

After an early safety car restart caused by Jack Doohan and Carlos Sainz in the opening moments, Hamilton’s race up to lap 34 was uneventful – neither positive nor negative.

Stuck behind Albon and Tsunoda, he seemed content to simply bring the car back to the garage intact in the difficult track conditions.

However, a second safety car, triggered by Fernando Alonso, was to allow all drivers to change to slick tyres for free. More rain was expected, but keeping the cars on track with the intermediate tyres so worn out was already proving to be a very difficult task, as the Spaniard crashed while chasing Pierre Gasly.

After putting on the hard tyre, Hamilton couldn’t make any progress on the new restart either and stayed behind Albon and Tsunoda. But then came the chaos and the heavier rain that was expected minutes before. And this is where Ferrari and Hamilton missed a big opportunity.

The rain came down heavily in Sector 3 just where Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri and Max Verstappen were fighting for the win. The Australian driver was under pressure from the Dutchman for P2 and made a mistake by going wide at Turn 11. Then trying to recover, he went wide again to get stuck in the grass at Turn 13.

At this point, the track conditions in the final corners of the Albert Park circuit were extremely tricky. But making a decision on what to do was not easy as the rain was only in a very localised area of the track and was not expected to last for long.

In fact, the decisions made on the various pitwalls of the grid were very varied. Norris, George Russell, Albon, Lance Stroll, Kimi Antonelli, Nico Hülkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto were among those who decided to pit for intermediate tyres.

This resulted to be a very successful gamble. All of them were the big beneficiaries as Bortoleto himself made a mistake at the exit of Turn 12 that put him into the wall. The Safety Car was deployed again, making those drivers who had anticipated their pit stop on lap 44 to gain valuable points.

On the other hand, Verstappen, Tsunoda, Hamilton, Gasly and Leclerc stayed on track with slick tyres. Ferrari’s big mistake, however, was to delay the stop until two laps later, causing Hamilton to unnecessarily lose position to the Alpine driver as well.

So what could have been Hamilton’s final position with a well-timed stop? Without a doubt, the Ferrari driver could have challenged for the P4 position that his Mercedes replacement Antonelli finally achieved.

In hindsight, Hamilton is understandably frustrated. But it was certainly a difficult call to make and perhaps also in an effort to try to do something different, Ferrari decided to make an opposite call to Albon seeing that Hamilton was not able to overtake him on track either. And also, the chance of taking a 1-2 if a red flag appeared with Hamilton in the lead of the race.

But it was that decision, a simple call to the pit box in a matter of seconds that made the difference between being in the fight for the podium against his former team-mate Russell or being behind an Aston Martin and a Kick Sauber who were not in the picture until then. It is that wonderful essence of Formula 1 strategy and of the sport in general.

With the intermediate tyre stop already done, Hamilton was in P9 with seven laps to go and ahead of Leclerc, who spun and lost position to his new team-mate earlier in the race.

However, it didn’t take the Monegasque a lap to overtake Hamilton after the restart and he dropped to 10th. However, both he and Leclerc managed to overtake Gasly’s Alpine on lap 54.

Finally, it was Oscar Piastri who capped a dramatic race for Hamilton on his debut for the Maranello-based team. The McLaren driver, in a very risky manoeuvre in which he touched and damaged Hamilton’s front wing on the outside of fast Turn 9, overtook the seven-time world champion to relegate him to his P10 finish.

A very tricky race for Hamilton, then,, who has yet to adapt to the SF25 and was clearly seen to be cautious rather than trying to take risks and overdrive.

He only scored one point, but still managed to bring the car home on a difficult track where drivers as experienced as Fernando Alonso and Carlos Sainz ended up in the wall.

Hamilton will leave Melbourne dreaming of what could have been.