“I’m looking forward to coming back,” Lewis Hamilton uttered, at a barely audible volume. “Hopefully I’ll be back, yeah.”
The second part of his answer – relating to the next race after Formula 1’s summer break – was not as dramatic as it may seem. So hard it was to hear the seven-time world champion, he was asked to repeat himself, and did so a little more forcefully, without the use of the word “hopefully” appearing to be fully considered.
It’s a demeanor the Formula 1 world has seen many times from Hamilton. He’s not good at handling disappointment in the sense that he will often revert to one-word answers at little more than a whisper. It tells you everything about how he’s feeling, but it makes what he says extremely hard to hear and understand.
And when that happens, the lack of clarity over the words Hamilton uses can lead to assumptions being made, or misinterpretations of his comments.
Hungary was a particularly notable example, as he told broadcasters after qualifying that he was “absolutely useless,” adding to Sky Sports: “The team has no problem. You’ve seen the car is on pole, so… We probably need to change driver.”
Those quotes quickly snowballed into speculation he could walk away from Ferrari midseason, but that would be reading far too much into it – even if attempts to get him to speak more positively a day later also fell flat.
“That is Lewis wearing his heart on his sleeve,” his former boss Toto Wolff said. “It’s what he thought when he was asked after the session. It was very raw. He was down on himself.
“We had it in the past when he felt that he’d underperformed in his own expectations. He has been that emotionally transparent since he was a young adult. He will beat himself up. But he’s the GOAT and will always be the GOAT.
“[Nothing] will take that away, no single weekend or race season which hasn’t gone to plan. That’s something he needs to always remember – that he’s the greatest of all time.”
Wolff wasn’t being reflective, more linking the tendency to slip into such a downbeat move to just one of the many complex aspects that have powered Hamilton to the highest of highs in the past, and an overall wins record that he extended last summer.
“Lewis has unfinished business in Formula 1,” Wolff continued. “In the same way that Mercedes underperformed over this latest set of regulations, we never got happy with ground-effect car, in the same way it [affects] him. Maybe it is linked to driving style.
“He shouldn’t go anywhere next year. There are brand-new cars which are completely different to drive. New power units which need an intelligent way of managing the energy. I hope he’s in for many more years. Next year is an important one.
“If he has a car underneath him which he has confidence in and which does what he wants, then yes [he can win an eighth title]. If he has a car which isn’t giving him the feedback that he wants – like the Mercedes of the past few years or the Ferrari which seems to be worse – then not.
“But you ask me if he still has it? He definitely has it.”
For whatever reason, Hamilton has struggled to take his Ferrari to the edge of its performance envelope, although his boss notes that it’s a complicated picture. Clive Rose/Getty Images
We’ve seen flashes of Hamilton still having it this season. In a car that has yet to win a grand prix and only took its first pole position in Budapest, Hamilton was fastest in Sprint qualifying and duly won the Sprint in China, on just his second race weekend.
He awaits a first grand prix podium for Ferrari, but has three fourth-placed results to his name this year and was also third in the Miami Sprint. He is one place and 42 points behind teammate Charles Leclerc, after undertaking such a major transition of swapping Mercedes for Ferrari after 12 years at Wolff’s team.
Hamilton’s latest team principal is very matter of fact, not getting carried away with success and not allowing a failure to be deemed a total disaster. To that end, Fred Vasseur was keen to point out the 0.247s gap between Hamilton and Leclerc in Q2 in Budapest, and the fact that Leclerc himself only reached the top-10 shootout by a little under that margin.
The result was disastrous, but the performance, while not satisfactory, was closer than the final standings may have suggested.
Budapest was far from the best example, either. Belgium a week earlier saw Hamilton all but match Leclerc’s times, only to suffer a spin due to an unfamiliar brake configuration in the first part of Sprint qualifying, and then a misjudgment at Raidillon led him to exceed track limits and lose his time in Q1.
“He had a good recovery after Miami,” Vasseur said. “Spain, Silverstone, Austria, he was matching Charles – Canada [too], two or three times he was in front of Charles in qualifying.
“I know the game – you have to finish the lap, and you have to finish the race. It makes no sense to lead the race for 40 laps if you are not able to finish. But you have to avoid drawing conclusions too quickly.”
In Budapest, it was almost as if Hamilton was guilty of not following Vasseur’s advice, but it won’t all just boil down to one weekend.
He arrived at Ferrari to such fanfare, and joined a team that had been regularly fighting for wins towards the end of 2024. Ferrari got so close to beating McLaren for the constructors’ championship, and Leclerc scored the most points of any driver after the summer break. All of the indicators were he was moving to a more competitive outfit than Mercedes.
P2 in the standings this year suggests as much for Ferrari, but that’s based on being consistently close to second quickest, rather than ever enjoying the peaks of race-winning machinery at select venues. The year hasn’t matched expectations, and Hamilton’s disappointment in his own performances are felt on top of that wider picture.
“He’s demanding, but I think it’s also why he’s a seven-time world champion,” Vasseur said. “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.
“It’s always been a good motivation for him. The main reason of performance. For sure, when you are a seven-time world champion and your teammate is in pole position and you are out in Q2, it’s a tough situation.
“But we can also have a deep look – he was in front of Charles in Q1, on the first set, he was one-tenth off in Q2. We are not far away from having the two cars out in Q2. And the outcome of this is Charles at the end is able to do the pole position, but it’s not… honestly, the gap was not 1.2 seconds [in qualifying]. But I can understand the frustration from Lewis. This is normal.
“He will come back. We’ve discussed a lot, the race was difficult because we took some bets to start with the hard, so then he was stuck in the DRS train. But when he was alone, the pace was good. I am sure he will be back in Zandvoort and he will perform.”
The chance to perform in front of the tifosi could be a big boost to Hamilton in the second half. Sam Bloxham/LAT Images
The 40-year-old was not in the frame of mind to look at the wider context when he climbed out of his car on Saturday and Sunday, but the summer break couldn’t have come at a better time.
Whether he completely detaches himself from F1 – having admitted this year has seen him have to work extremely hard within a new environment – or he digs into what has gone on over the past seven months, Hamilton will still see the potential for himself to deliver. And he’ll return to action one week before a Monza weekend that is likely to energize him massively.
And it’s not as if Ferrari doesn’t have its own soul-searching to do, as it investigates the reasons why Leclerc was hampered so badly in the final stint in Budapest. It will want to ensure it isn’t similarly hurt if another victory chance comes along after the shutdown.
The anticipation of January feels such a long time ago, and the season so far will have taken a lot out of both team and driver. In an environment as passionate as Ferrari, letting the emotion of results subside might just be what both need to be able to respond more positively in the latter part of the year.
