Vasseur leaps to defence of ‘unlucky’ Lewis Hamilton in ‘silly’ admission

Lewis Hamilton has been missing some much-needed good fortune in recent times.

That is the opinion held by his Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur, who pointed to how a gap of just one-tenth to Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc in Hungary Q2 had such drastic consequences for Hamilton. It made for a situation which looked “silly”.

Fred Vasseur defends Lewis Hamilton after Hungary blow

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

Hamilton is yet to truly deliver as a Ferrari driver, considering all the hype which surrounded the seven-time World Champion’s arrival from Mercedes.

All five of Ferrari’s podium results in a challenging F1 2025 campaign have been delivered by Leclerc, who is 42 points ahead of Hamilton in the Drivers’ Championship standings.

At the Hungarian Grand Prix – the final round before the summer break – Hamilton’s Ferrari career hit a new low point, as he repeatedly called himself “useless” and suggested Ferrari “change driver” as he dropped out in Q2. Leclerc, meanwhile, scored his and Ferraris first pole position of the season.

Hamilton finished where he started in twelfth.

After the race, he was reunited with his suggestion that Ferrari should replace him, and told the media, including PlanetF1.com that “I have nothing else to say.”

Asked if he would definitely race for Ferrari at the Dutch Grand Prix, the first round after the summer break, Hamilton added: “I look forward to coming back… Hopefully I will be back, yeah.”

Vasseur thinks it is a case of fine margins which have been hurting Hamilton, and he is not getting the rub of the green.

“Often it’s down to circumstances, and Lewis has been on the unlucky side more often than not recently,” Vasseur told Auto Motor und Sport.

“In Budapest, he was ahead of Charles in Q1 and was only a tenth slower in Q2. He was 15 thousandths short of advancing.

“In the end, one is first and the other is twelfth. Of course, that looks silly. But it wasn’t far off, and we would have ended up in eleventh and twelfth place with our two drivers.”

Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc head-to-head in F1 2025

? F1 2025: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between team-mates

? F1 2025: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates

Continuing with the theme of miniscule margins, Vasseur said Hamilton sometimes has the habit of “exaggerating the problems”.

“We solve the problems step by step. They’re not huge, they just look that way,” Vasseur stated.

“If the braking system isn’t quite how the driver would like it, then maybe half a tenth is lost there. From the outside, it’s often difficult to quickly identify exactly where he’s losing that half-tenth. Such a minimal time difference can ruin your whole weekend. It can be the difference between Q2 and Q3.

“Lewis sometimes exaggerates the problems he sees in the car. The team then naturally wants to respond, and everyone jumps on this problem.”

Ferrari are best-of-the-rest behind the dominant McLaren in F1 2025. It promises to be a gripping battle for P2 in the Constructors’ Championship, as Mercedes are only 24 points behind with 10 rounds to go.

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