"Don’t count me out," claims Hamilton after his tough weekend in Hungary
Having endured a disappointing qualifying session on Saturday, Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton spent the majority of the Budapest race stuck in traffic, ending up 12th. Despite the tough weekend, the seven-time world champion has promised to fight back after the summer break.
Ferrari endured mixed emotions in Saturday’s qualifying at the Hungaroring. Lewis Hamilton failed to secure anything better than a P12 on the grid after struggling for pace in constantly-changing weather conditions.
On the other side of the garage, Charles Leclerc also looked to uncomfortable behind the wheel of his SF-25, albeit he progressed into the final part of qualifying. With a storming lap, he grabbed pole position on a track where he never really felt himself competitive.
Come the race, the Monegasque had a great start to maintain the lead into Turn 1. During his first stint, he looked very competitive and was able to build up a margin from his closest rival Oscar Piastri.
Although he appeared to be strong during his second stint as well, his pace unexpectedly faded in the last segment of the Mogyoród race which saw him fall back to P4, ending a disappointing day at the Hungaroring.
His team-mate Hamilton started from the hard compound, but spent most of the race in traffic.
Although he looked strong even on used tyres in free air, he found himself in heavy traffic on his second set of tyres again, which meant that he was ended up down in P12, the position which he started the 70-lap race from.
Commenting on his tough weekend at the Hungaroring, Hamilton said: "It’s been a challenging weekend and one to move on from. We weren’t able to make the progress we hoped for but I’m grateful for the effort everyone in the team put in throughout the weekend.
"Now we head into the break. I’ll be using the time to reset, recharge and come back stronger. I’m not where I want to be yet, but the fight’s not over - don’t count me out," concluded Hamilton.
