Watch: Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur snaps back at Sky Sports reporter on being questioned about Lewis Hamilton's form

Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur staunchly defended his driver Lewis Hamilton in the media after the latter failed to get out of Q2 in the Hungarian Grand Prix qualifying session. The British driver was unable to extract the maximum performance out of the SF-25 during the qualifying session and finished in P13, while his teammate Charles Leclerc secured a shock pole position.

The seven-time F1 world champion is the most successful driver around the iconic Hungaroring circuit with nine pole positions and eight race victories in his time in the sport. However, he has looked a step behind his teammate throughout the weekend and was visibly upset by the result on Saturday.

When Sky Sports reporter Craig Slater tried to ask about Lewis Hamilton's confidence and contribution to the team, Vasseur snapped and replied:

"I think it's on Sky that last week you said that he had a fantastic race, yes, good."

In his post-quali interview, the 40-year-old was visibly downbeat and self-critical as he said:

"It's me every time. I'm useless, absolutely useless. The team have no problem. You've seen the car's on pole. So they probably need to change driver."

Lewis Hamilton is yet to secure a podium finish with the Maranello-based outfit in the main race while coming in the Top 3 in two of the three Sprint races, including his P1 in China and P3 in Miami.

F1 pundit defends Lewis Hamilton after a disappointing qualifying

F1 pundit Jamie Chadwick stated that she did not believe that Lewis Hamilton was useless and claimed that the latter has been self-critical over the past couple of years to a degree that he was not previously when he was winning.

Speaking with Sky Sports, the former Williams F1 Academy driver said on the subject:

"Really difficult, and it's definitely not the driver. He's definitely not useless. It's a hard listen hearing him say that because I don't think the Lewis that we know is that self-critical, but recently we've started to hear this. Last year at Mercedes, particularly around qualifying, he started to allude to really struggling with qualifying and he was very self-critical. "It was hard to listen to because that's not the confident nature that he carries himself with. He's admitted that the car's on pole, it's not the car, it's him. But I find that hard to believe. There might be a tenth or so between them. Today it was a bad moment to have a bad lap, and that put him out in Q2,"

Lewis Hamilton would hope for a cleaner race on Sunday and look to make up some positions in the first few laps and score as many points as possible from the weekend before the summer break.

Edited by pranavsethii