Steiner calls out Lewis Hamilton’s ‘wrong attitude’ after ‘useless’ claim

Lewis Hamilton irked Guenther Steiner when he called himself “useless” at the Hungarian Grand Prix, as he says it’s an “attitude that people should feel sorry for you”.

Hamilton had a torrid time on the track leading up to F1’s annual summer break as he failed to progress to Q3 in three successive qualifying sessions.

Guenther Steiner: Just feeling sorry for yourself

The Briton suffered a double elimination at the Belgian Grand Prix, spinning out of SQ1 and then losing his fastest lap time through a track limit violation in qualifying.

Apologising to Ferrari, Hamilton said it was “unacceptable to be out in both Q1s, it’s a very, very poor performance from myself”.

His mood wasn’t lifted a week later when he bombed out of qualifying in 12th place while his team-mate Charles Leclerc put the other Ferrari on pole position.

Hamilton didn’t hold back in his self-criticism

“It’s just me every time,” he said. “I’m useless, absolutely useless. Team has no problem, you’ve seen the car’s on pole.

“They probably need to change driver.”

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But while his response garnered sympathy from his fans, who rallied around him on social media, Steiner wasn’t impressed.

“How can you come out as being seven-time World Champion saying, I’m useless?” the former Haas team boss said on the Red Flags podcast.

“That was, it’s not his performance. I do not care about that. I’m not going into his performance. He’s struggling. At some stage in our life, we all struggle a little bit.

“I still struggle, so I always struggle, but coming out and saying, ‘oh, I’m useless’.

“That’s the wrong attitude. And that is for me.

“I don’t like the attitude of giving up, you know, or it’s an attitude that people should feel sorry for you.”

Instead, of getting down on himself, Steiner has told the 40-year-old to focus on what he does well, and that’s driving a car.

“For me,” he continued, “it’s like if I’m seven times World Champion, I’ve got enough confidence that I know that I’m not useless. I just need to work harder and going back to get my mojo back. It’s one of these things.”

“A few weeks ago, [Hamilton was] sitting down the engineers telling them what to do and now you’re coming back and saying, ‘I’m useless’.

“It’s just focus on what you’re good at, which is driving a race car, because he’s good. He’s a seven-time World Champion.”

“That’s the wrong attitude,” he added. “Just feeling sorry for yourself.”

Hamilton, though, had shrugged off his despondency by Monday morning when he vowed to come back stronger after the summer break.

“I’ll be using the time to reset, recharge and come back stronger,” he said.

“I’m not where I want to be yet, but the fight’s not over – don’t count me out.”

Hamilton, who has yet to score a podium in red, is P6 in the Drivers’ standings, one position behind Leclerc but 42 points down.

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