BUDAPEST, Hungary \u2014 A day after calling himself \u201cuseless,\u201d Lewis Hamilton said he’s facing issues \u201cin the background\u201d after another difficult Formula 1 race.<\/p>\n
Hamilton finished 12th Sunday, the same place he’d qualified the day before, a result which had prompted him to call himself \u201cabsolutely useless\u201d and suggest Ferrari might consider changing drivers.<\/p>\n
His race was a world away from teammate Charles Leclerc, who was disappointed with fourth after starting on pole.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you have a feeling, you have a feeling. There\u2019s a lot going on in the background that is not great,\u201d Hamilton told British broadcaster Sky Sports after the race when asked to explain his comments from a day before. Asked if he’d lost his love of racing, Hamilton said no.<\/p>\n
In response to a question about seemingly being forced off the track by old rival Max Verstappen, a standout moment in an otherwise largely quiet race for Hamilton, he said: \u201cI don\u2019t really remember it, to be honest.\u201d<\/p>\n
Verstappen was investigated over the incident, but not punished. Hamilton \u201cwaived his right to attend the hearing,\u201d the ruling from the stewards said.<\/p>\n
A representative for Ferrari speaking on Hamilton’s behalf \u201cconfirmed that there was no contact between both cars and further stated that the driver of Car 44 (Hamilton) chose not to attempt to remain on track,\u201d the stewards added.<\/p>\n
A statement issued by Ferrari after the race included comments from Hamilton saying he’d \u201crecharge\u201d over the four-week break until the Dutch Grand Prix.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a challenging weekend and one to move on from. We weren\u2019t able to make the progress we hoped for but I\u2019m grateful for the effort everyone in the team put in throughout the weekend,\u201d Hamilton said in the statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow we head into the break. I\u2019ll be using the time to reset, recharge and come back stronger. I\u2019m not where I want to be yet, but the fight\u2019s not over \u2014 don\u2019t count me out.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was a frustrating day overall for Ferrari as Leclerc lost pace in the second half of the race and went from fighting for the win to dropping off the podium altogether after a hard-fought battle with George Russell of Mercedes.<\/p>\n
In a lengthy radio message, Leclerc suggested Ferrari was not listening to him in an \u201cincredibly frustrating\u201d situation and that the car had become \u201cundriveable.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the race, though, Leclerc said he’d been mistaken.<\/p>\n
\u201cI spoke too quickly, I guess,\u201d he told Sky Sports, and said he’d been informed after the race that there had been a problem with his car’s chassis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BUDAPEST, Hungary \u2014 A day after calling himself \u201cuseless,\u201d Lewis Hamilton said he’s facing issues \u201cin the background\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42791,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":["post-42790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}