Scuderia Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur has responded to the comments made by Lewis Hamilton after the Hungarian Grand Prix. Hamilton started from P12 and finished the race in the same position.
Newsweek Sports reported the seven-time world champion’s statement after he was knocked out of Q2 in qualifying on Saturday. He appeared low while stating that Ferrari should look for another driver because he was “useless.”
The Grand Prix saw Hamilton struggle to recover positions in his SF-25 F1 car, failing to finish within the points, while his teammate Charles Leclerc finished in P4. After the race, when Hamilton was asked about his comments from the previous day, he said:
“Not particularly, when you have a feeling, you have a feeling. There’s a lot going on in the background that’s not great, so…”
“I still love it. I still love racing.”
Given Hamilton’s statement, Vasseur was asked if he was planning on motivating the Briton. He said:
“I don’t need to motivate him. 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 understood the reason for Hamilton’s frustration and admitted that he is a demanding driver, but emphasized that it is what pushes him to excel. He said:
“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.”
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