Hamilton shoulders blame for Q2 exit

Lewis Hamilton described himself as “absolutely useless” after dropping out of qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix in Q2, while teammate Charles Leclerc took pole position.

Ferrari secured its first pole position of the season at the Hungaroring as Leclerc beat the two McLarens, but Hamilton was unable to join that fight after missing out by just 0.015s in Q2. Hamilton was 0.247s slower than Leclerc in that part of the session and explained that his radio message of “every time” was aimed at himself.

“It’s just me every time,” Hamilton told Sky Sports. “Yeah, I’m useless. Absolutely useless.”

“The team has no problem. You’ve seen the car is on pole, so… We probably need to change driver.”

While Hamilton was downbeat, his team principal Fred Vasseur was far more philosophical when it came to the margins between the two drivers as the session progressed.

“For sure it was by far the best session of the season, but it was a very difficult one and you have to keep this in mind,” Vasseur told SiriusXM. “We were not that far away from having the two cars out in Q2, and we were able to come back and to put everything together and do some steps for Q3.

“But it was a huge challenge for us – for everybody I think. Conditions were changing massively from Q1 to Q2 with some drops [of rain] and a bit more windy at the end. And then the window for the tires is so narrow that if you are a bit out then you are dead. It’s a challenge and for sure we know that when the conditions are like this, it’s very, very tricky to put everything together.

“It’s better to start from pole in Budapest than from P12, for sure, but I think the analysis is a good one that you don’t have to compare P1 and P12, you have to compare one tenth in Q2. This is more the issue, because Charles was not that far away from being out in Q2, and we have to keep this in mind in our analysis of the day.

“But it is like it is, and for sure we have to collectively do a better job to not be exposed in Q1 or Q2. And the fact that we had to use a second set in Q1 also was not a good start to the session, because then you only have one set in Q2 and it’s much more difficult.”