Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur hit back at a question posed to him about Lewis Hamilton‘s form following his miserable Formula 1 Hungarian Grand Prix weekend.
Hamilton endured a torrid time at the Hungaroring, missing out on Q3, a disappointment exacerbated by watching team-mate Charles Leclerc take pole position.
After dejectedly suggesting the team “change driver”, and branding himself “useless”, his race did not fare much better, finishing where he started – in 12th place.
This led to further misery exuding from the seven-time World Champion, who proclaimed that there was “a lot going on in the background that’s not great” at Ferrari.
Vasseur has publicly defended his driver previously, stating after the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix that people “have to stop” the spotlight being placed on his adaptation.
The Frenchman did so again in Budapest, after being asked whether he feels that he is getting the performances he expected from Hamilton, given the financial outlay.
“I’m not sure that I understand your question, or if I understand. It’s not a good one,” he retorted to media including Motorsport Week.
“We are taking drivers because we want to compete in the championship and to score points and to win races.”
Questions posed of Hamilton ‘could be asked’ of Verstappen
Vasseur was also asked if he was worried by Hamilton’s continuing struggles, the Briton having yet to score a podium finish, his Sprint Race win in China excepted.
But he replied that, given Max Verstappen has, by his standards, not hit the same heights, similar questions could be posed to Red Bull counterpart Laurent Mekies.
“I would prefer to do P1 and P1, but we already know that you could ask the same question to Max. This season is completely different,” he said.
Vasseur emphasised that fine margins saw Hamilton eliminated from Q2, and being stuck in a DRS train during the race was always going to leave him struggling.
“It’s very, very tight when you are not into the pace, you can do P14 in quali,” he explained. “We know that yesterday in quali didn’t [go] well.
“Then we took some bets, and when you do a bet like this to start with Hards, you know that you can lose position.
“Then we did the bet also to go for one-stop because when you are P14 and you have a train of DRS you have to do different and it didn’t work.”
READ MORE – Charles Leclerc tips Lewis Hamilton’s dire F1 Hungarian GP weekend to be an outlier
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