Lewis Hamilton: I’m absolutely useless and Ferrari need a new driver

Lewis Hamilton said he is “absolutely useless” and claimed Ferrari need to replace him after he qualified 12th for the Hungarian Grand Prix – as team-mate Charles Leclerc took pole position.

Outside of a sprint win at the second round in China, Hamilton’s move from Mercedes to Ferrari has failed to live up to its blockbuster billing and his debut season in red took another sorry twist when he was knocked out of Q2 at the Hungaroring.

The 40-year-old has a record eight wins and nine pole positions here. However, a week after he qualified only 16th at Spa-Francorchamps, he suffered another setback.

Hamilton has now been out-qualified by Leclerc at 10 of the 14 rounds so far, has finished ahead of him only twice and trails his team-mate by 30 points in the standings.

And, in an astonishing admission in the moments after qualifying, Hamilton told Sky Sports: “It’s me every time.

“I’m useless, absolutely useless. The team have no problem. You’ve seen the car’s on pole. So we probably need to change driver.”

After he failed to progress to Q3, Hamilton emerged from his cockpit and walked towards the Ferrari motorhome holding his gloves in front of his visor to obstruct the full glare of the waiting TV cameras.

Hamilton’s lowly grid slot looks set to extend his run without a podium finish to 14 races. Until this season he had never gone more than 10 rounds into a campaign without finishing in the top three.

Ready to fight from there