Lewis Hamilton tells Ferrari to 'change driver' as Brit distraught at Hungarian GP

Lewis Hamilton described his qualifying performances as 'useless' after a Q2 exit at the Hungarian Grand Prix. The seven-time world champion also insisted that his team needs to 'change driver' if they're to recover their underwhelming results in the second seat.

While Hamilton ended the qualifying session down in 12th place, his team-mate roared to his first pole position at the Hungaroring, and the 27th of his career. Charles Leclerc never looked like a factor at the circuit he described as his worst in Formula One on Thursday, but popped up at the last minute to stun the McLaren drivers. While Leclerc was overwhelmed by joy and positive surprise, Hamilton cut a distraught figure in the media pen. "It's me every time," he sighed. "I'm useless, absolutely useless."

Probed over the cause of his struggles, he made no effort to deflect attention from the gap between the two cars. "Team's not the problem," he continued. "[You] can see the other car on pole. Team probably needs to change driver."

Hamilton's Q2 exit follows a testing weekend at the Belgian Grand Prix last weekend. The 40-year-old was eliminated in Q1 in both the sprint shootout and in qualifying, although he showed some pace on race day, recovering to finish seventh after booking himself in for a pit lane start.

Hamilton will now be counting down the hours until the summer break, which kicks into gear after the Hungarian GP chequered flag. "The last god knows how many seasons have been hard in their own way," he said on Thursday. "This one's definitely been the most intense one, I would say.

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"Just from a work perspective, integrating into a new culture, into a new team. It's not gone smoothly in all areas, and it's been a real battle. Yeah, my spirit, I definitely need to get away and recharge, be around the kids, laugh, let go. I'm sure there'll be some tears at some point, and I think that's really healthy.

"But I'm always excited to race. I love what I do. I love being in red. I love working with this team. I have such belief in this team. It's really hard to explain, but I already had it a lot when I was in my previous team. Over time, you really build that camaraderie, and I see the passion in this team, and I love it. All I want to do is contribute the best that I can.

"Of course, I need to do most of that, mostly on track, and I'm not always hitting that. But also in the background, I see there's things that we can always improve, and there's things that I can improve on. I'm just really excited for this break. I think for everybody, particularly the guys at the factory, I think they'll definitely enjoy this time with their family, and then we'll come back extra energised for the second half."