Lewis Hamilton says he has “a lot going on in the background” after finishing 12th in the Hungarian GP, a day after describing himself as “useless” and suggesting Ferrari should find a replacement driver.
Hamilton had suffered another early exit in qualifying on Saturday, and was unable to make up positions in Sunday’s race. The seven-time world champion lost positions at the start but eventually fought back to finish where he started and was also involved in an incident with old rival Max Verstappen, for which the Dutchman avoided any further action.
Hamilton’s team-mate Charles Leclerc had started on pole but finished fourth after developing a “chassis issue” during the race as Lando Norris made a one-stop strategy work to win ahead of Oscar Piastri and George Russell.
“When you have a feeling, you have a feeling. There’s a lot going on in the background that is not great,” Hamilton told Sky Sports F1’s Rachel Brookes when asked if he could explain his Saturday comments further.
The 40-year-old, though, insisted he has not lost his love of racing.
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Red Bull’s Max Verstappen pushed past Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton to claim P11 at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
In his written media briefing, Hamilton was asked to confirm he would definitely be at the Dutch Grand Prix when F1 returns from it’s summer break on August 29-31.
“I look forward to coming back. Hopefully I’ll be back,” Hamilton replied.
Vasseur: Hamilton frustrated, not demotivated
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After a challenging qualifying session at the Hungarian Grand Prix, Martin Brundle and Jamie Chadwick discuss whether Lewis Hamilton can recover at Ferrari.
Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur also defended Hamilton after another tough weekend and insisted it was the high demands the Briton puts on himself that has prompted his self-criticism.
“I don’t need to motivate him. He’s frustrated, but not demotivated, you know, it’s a completely different story,” Vasseur said post-race.
“I can perfectly understand the situation, and you can… sometimes you are making comments on what the driver [is] saying to the car, but you put the microphone on some other sportsman in football, and so not sure that it would be much better.
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Watch the race highlights from the 2025 Hungarian Grand Prix.
“You know that they are in the performance and sometimes they are making comments even when they jump out of the car. I can understand the frustration… we are all frustrated.
“Sometimes just after the race, or just after the qualy, you are very disappointed, and the reaction, the first reaction, is off. But we all know that we are pushing in the same direction. The good side of today is that if we are putting everything, when we are putting everything together, we are able to do the pole position and lead the first 40 laps.”
He added: “I would prefer to do P1 and P1 [rather than P12 and P12] but we already know that you could ask the same question to Max. I think it’s a championship this season [that] is completely different. It’s very, very tight. When you are not in the pace you can do P14 in qualy.
“Yesterday, qualy didn’t go well. Then we took some bait. And when you do a bet like this to start with hard [tyres] you know that you can lose position or not. We lost and then we did the bet also to vote for one stop because when you are P14 and you have a train of DRS, you have to do [something] different.”
Leclerc explains how car became “undriveable”
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Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc reflects on a frustrating Hungarian Grand Prix after starting on pole position and finishing off the podium.
The second Ferrari of Leclerc had started on pole position and led for much of the first half of the race with Piastri unable to challenge the Monegasque in the opening two stints.
But after his second stop, his Ferrari started losing performance as Piastri was able to breeze past at his first attempt on lap 51 to try and chase down the one-stopping Norris.
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Oscar Piastri eases past Charles Leclerc to secure P2 at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
A number of increasingly angry team radio messages from Leclerc culminated in him saying: “This is so incredibly frustrating. We have lost all competitiveness. You just had to listen to me. I would have found a different way of managing these issues. Now it’s just undriveable. Undriveable. It will be a miracle if we finish on the podium.”
Leclerc would indeed finish off the podium in fourth after also losing out to Russell, the Ferrari driver also receiving a five-second penalty for ‘erratic driving’ while trying to defend from the Mercedes driver.
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Mercedes’ George Russell snatches Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc’s podium hopes with ease at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Explaining what happened post-race, Leclerc told Sky Sports F1: “I spoke too quickly I guess because getting out of the car I got a few more details about what went on.
“I thought it was about something else that we had discussed but unfortunately it was a problem on the chassis. There was an issue on that side so we will look into it for it to not happen again.
“It doesn’t make me feel any better because when you are fighting for a win and then you have those kind of issues. We need to look at it for it to never happen again as the car was just undriveable.
“It was a one-off so it’s something we need to look into but I don’t think it’s something we will have ever again.
“It was around lap 40 when we started to have the issue and then it got worse and worse.
“It’s very frustrating to have everything under control, have the pace in the car to win, and then you are nowhere. We’re not even on the podium.”
Formula 1 returns after the summer break with the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort on August 29-31, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with NOW – no contract, cancel anytime
