Ferrari group principal Fred Vasseur says Lewis Hamilton is pissed off however not demotivated after quite a lot of harsh feedback in the course of the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend.
Hamilton described himself as “completely ineffective” after dropping out in Q2 in qualifying, including that Ferrari “in all probability want to alter driver” after seeing teammate Charles Leclerc take pole place. The seven-time world champion was equally downbeat after ending twelfth – the identical place he began – saying he wouldn’t change his earlier feedback.
“Not significantly,” Hamilton informed Sky Sports activities. “When you have got a sense, you have got a sense. There’s loads happening within the background that’s not nice, so…”
Hamilton did add that, “I nonetheless love the group,” when pushed on his love of racing, and Vasseur says followers shouldn’t take his demeanor in Budapest as an absence of motivation.
“I need not encourage him,” Vasseur mentioned. “Actually, he is pissed off, however not demotivated. It is a utterly totally different story. I can completely perceive the scenario. Typically you’re making feedback on what the motive force is saying within the automobile, however for those who put the microphone on another sportsmen in soccer and so forth, I am unsure that it will be a lot better.
“They’re within the efficiency and generally they’re making feedback, even after they bounce out of the automobile. I can perceive the frustration, however we’re all pissed off. Typically for those who ask me, I can not [answer immediately]; I’ll go to the stewards! However generally simply after the race or simply after qualifying, you’re very disillusioned and the primary response is harsh.
“Everyone knows that we’re pushing in the identical course and the nice facet of in the present day is that, after we are placing all the things collectively, we’re capable of do the pole place and to guide the primary 40 laps. If you’ll be able to lead the primary 40 laps, you’ll be able to go to the top. Now we have now to seek out why we misplaced the tempo and to appropriate it for the subsequent one.”
Vasseur additionally says the top outcome on the Hungaroring was a byproduct of the beginning place, pointing to Max Verstappen’s ninth-placed end after a difficult qualifying as one other instance of how aggressive the sector is that this yr.
“I would like to do P1 and P1, however we already know that you may ask the identical query to Max,” he mentioned. “As a championship, this season is totally totally different – it is very, very tight. If you end up not on the tempo, you are able to do [P12] in qualifying.
“We all know that yesterday in qualifying, it did not go effectively. Then we took some bets, and whenever you do a guess like this to begin with hards, that you could lose positions or not. We misplaced, after which we did the guess additionally to go for one cease, as a result of when you’re P14 and you’ve got a prepare of DRS, you need to do totally different, and it did not work.”
