Fred Vasseur: Lewis Hamilton “frustrated, not demotivated” after poor Hungarian GP

Ferrari Formula 1 team principal Fred Vasseur says he understands Lewis Hamilton‘s frustration after a poor Hungarian Grand Prix weekend, but backs the seven-time world champion to bounce back after the summer break. 

Hamilton was dumped out of Q2 on Saturday, relegating him to 12th on the grid, while team-mate Charles Leclerc surprised both McLarens to snatch pole. 

From his lowly grid position,  Hamilton was unable to move up in traffic and avoid being lapped, while Leclerc initially looked on for a podium until an unknown issue with his car bumped him out of contention. 

After his disappointing qualifying session, Hamilton was bereft of answers and suggested Ferrari should find a different driver, and he was equally gloomy and withdrawn following the race on Sunday. 

When quizzed on his star signing’s difficult spell at Maranello, team principal Vasseur backed Hamilton to bounce back quickly and didn’t want to read too much into his stinging self-criticism. 

“I don’t need to motivate him. Honestly, he’s frustrated, but not demotivated,” Vasseur said. “Yeah, he’s demanding. But I think it’s also why he’s seven-times world champion. He’s demanding with the team, with the car, with the engineers, with the mechanics, with myself as well. 

“I can perfectly understand the situation. Sometimes you are making comments on what the driver is saying [in] the car, but if you put the microphone on some other sportsmen in football and so on, I’m not sure that it would be much better. 

“Sometimes, just after the race or just after qualifying, you are very disappointed, and the first reaction is harsh. I can understand the frustration, but we are all frustrated. 

“Sometimes, if you ask me [something], if I say [what I want] I will go to the stewards.” 

Vasseur insisted Hamilton’s weekend looked worse than it was because he just missed the Q2 cutoff in a tight midfield, while Leclerc went a quarter of a second quicker to advance to Q3. 

“For sure, when you are a seven-time world champion, your team-mate is on pole position and you are out in Q2, it’s a tough situation,” he continued. “But overall, we can also have a deep look that he was in front of Charles in Q1, with the first set that he was one tenth off in Q2. 

“We were not far away from having the two cars out in Q2. And the outcome of this is that Charles at the end is able to do the pole position. The issue is that when we were lacking performance and at risk, he did one lap two tenths slower than Charles, and he was out in Q2. 

“I don’t know if we were unlucky with Lewis or lucky with Charles to go through, but at the end of the day, it’s really on the edge. 

“But I can understand the frustration from Lewis, that’s normal, and he will come back. Then he was stuck in a DRS train, but when he was alone, the pace was good. 

“I’m sure that he will be back and he will perform.” 

Hamilton heads into the summer break sixth in the drivers’ standings without a maiden Ferrari podium, although he did win China’s sprint event in April. 

Photos from Hungarian GP – Race