‘Hopefully I will be back’ – Cryptic Lewis Hamilton comment prompts Ferrari response
Lewis Hamilton has said "hopefully" he'll be back after the summer break.
Fred Vasseur is not worried about Lewis Hamilton’s motivation despite the Ferrari driver following up his “I’m useless” claim by saying “hopefully I will be back” after a wretched Hungarian GP weekend.
Hamilton raised eyebrows at the Hungaroring as he voiced his disappointment over his performances in qualifying and again in the grand prix.
Lewis Hamilton: I look forward to coming back… Hopefully I will be back
Additional reporting by Thomas Maher
The seven-time World Champion was eliminated from qualifying at the second hurdle, out in P12 as he fell 0.016s short of progressing.
His team-mate Charles Leclerc made it through to Q3 and grabbed a surprise pole position, Ferrari’s first grand prix pole of the F1 2025 season.
“It’s just me every time,” he told Sky F1. “I’m useless, absolutely useless.
“Team has no problem, you’ve seen the car’s on pole. They probably need to change driver.”
The Briton wasn’t able to make up positions in the grand prix where, starting on the hard tyres, he dropped two positions on the opening lap and found himself stuck in a DRS train.
Speaking to media including PlanetF1.com after the race, Hamilton said he felt the “same” as he had after Saturday’s qualifying, and his thoughts that Ferrari should find a new driver were also unchanged.
“I have nothing else to say,” he added, although he is “very much so” looking forward to the summer break.
Asked if he will definitely be driving the Ferrari when F1 returns with the Dutch GP, he replied: “I look forward to coming back… Hopefully I will be back, yeah.”
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But while was clearly dejected after his performances in Hungary, his team principal Vasseur isn’t worried that he has become demotivated.
Hamilton has struggled to match Leclerc’s performance with the Monegasque driving visiting the podium five times this season while Hamilton has yet to join the champagne celebrations.
P12 to Leclerc’s fourth place in Hungary, Hamilton has dropped 42 points behind his team-mate in the Drivers’ standings.
“I don’t need to motivate him, honestly. He’s frustrated, but not demotivated. It’s a completely different story,” Vasseur told media including PlanetF1.com.
“I can perfectly understand the situation. Sometimes you are making comments about what the driver saying about the car. Put the microphone on some other sportsman in football and so I’m not sure that it would be much better.
“You know that they are in the performance and sometimes they are making comments even when they jump out of the car.
“I can understand the frustration. We are all frustrated. And sometimes, if you ask me that me things, I want to say things but would go to the stewards.
“Sometimes just after the race, or just after the qualy, you are very disappointed, and the reaction, the first reaction, is off.
“But we all know that we are pushing in the same direction.”
Asked about Hamilton’s comment that Ferrari should replace him with another driver, Vasseur said he understood the 40-year-old’s frustration and gave no time to entertaining the subject of dropping Hamilton.
“Yes, he’s demanding, but that’s why he’s a seven-time World Champion,” the Frenchman replied.
“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. I think it’s always a good motivation for him and the main reason of performance.
“And for sure when you are a seven-time World Champion, and your team-mate is on pole position and you are out in Q2, it’s tough. It’s a tough situation.
“The outcome of this is that Charles at the end was able to do pole position.
“I can understand the frustration from Lewis, this is normal and we’ll come back. The race today was difficult because that we took some bet to start with hard and so he was stuck in the DRS train.”
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