Ferrari boss on Lewis Hamilton: ‘He’s frustrated, not demotivated’ Ferrari boss on Lewis Hamilton: ‘He’s frustrated, not demotivated’

Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur has said he fully understands Lewis Hamilton’s frustrations over the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend after the seven-time champion cut a dejected figure following Sunday’s race.

After qualifying 12th on Saturday, Hamilton said he felt “useless” and suggested Ferrari “probably need to change driver,” with his teammate Charles Leclerc securing pole position.

When he also finished Sunday’s race in 12th place, the Ferrari driver said he was still feeling “the same” as he had the previous day.

Asked if he had a plan to motivate Hamilton over the summer break and improve on his performances, Vasseur said such a conversation would not be necessary.

“I don’t need to motivate him,” Vasseur said. “Honestly, he’s frustrated, but not demotivated. You know, it’s a completely different story.

“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, I’m not sure that it would be much better.

“They are in the performance, and sometimes they are making comments, even when they jump out of the car. I can understand the frustration, but we are all frustrated. And sometimes if you ask me, I can’t say this, I will go to the stewards [for swearing]!

“But sometimes just after the race or just after the quali [qualifying], you are very disappointed and the first reaction is harsh. But we all know that we are pushing in the same direction.”

Vasseur insists the gap between Leclerc and Hamilton was been as big as it appeared in qualifying, with Hamilton just 0.015 seconds from making the cut to join Leclerc in the final part of qualifying.

The Ferrari boss believes Hamilton’s frustrations are borne out of his high expectations to compete at the very front.

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“Yeah, he’s demanding. But I think it’s also why he’s a seven-time world champion, he’s demanding with the team, with the car, with the engineers, with the mechanics, with myself also. But first of all, he’s very demanding with himself.

“It’s always been a good motivation for him. The main reason of performance. For sure, when you are a seven-time world champion and your teammate is in pole position, and you are out in Q2, it’s tough, it’s a tough situation.

“But we can also have a deep look, he was in front of Charles in Q1, on the first set, he was one-tenth off in Q2. We are not far away to have the two cars out in Q2.

“And the outcome of this is Charles at the end is able to do the pole position, but it’s not … Honestly, the gap was not 1.2 seconds yesterday.

“But I can understand the frustration from Lewis. This is normal.”