Hamilton receives support: 'Was nearly the same for Verstappen'

The seven-time world champion was harsh on himself after finished 12th in Qualifying. Talking to Sky Sports after the session, he said: "I'm useless, absolutely useless. The team have no problem. You've seen the car's on pole. So we probably need to change driver."

Meanwhile, his teammate, Charles Leclerc, qualified on pole position ahead of the two McLaren drivers. After the Grand Prix, Frederic Vasseur also stood up for his driver at the Hungaroring.

After starting from P12, Hamilton ended up in the same position. A weekend ago at Spa-Francorchamps, after being eliminated both in SQ1 and Q1, the Briton could however recover more positions.

"If you have a look on Q1 he was with the first set he's in front of Charles, the second one is in the tenth of Charles and at the end Charles is on pole position. The issue is that when we were lacking performance and at risk, he did one lap two tenths slower than Charles and he was out in Q2," the Frenchman began to GPblog among others.

Vasseur also explained that the same nearly happened to Max Verstappen last Saturday. "At the end of the day it's really on the edge. I think it was almost the same for Max, I spoke this morning with Laurent [Mekies], and they were quite close to be out. It's so tight that you can't go out and it's not because you are out that you are nowhere. If you compete in Q3, then you can do a good result."

He also sees the positives in Hamilton's performances. "He had a good recovery after Miami, Spain, Silverstone, Austria. He was matching Charles, in Canada, two or three times he was even in front of Charles in qualifying. Last weekend, when he lost the car Turn 14, he was six tenths faster than Charles."

He concluded: "I know the game you have to finish the lap and you have to finish the race, makes no sense to lead the race 40 laps if you are not able to finish, but you have to avoid to draw too quickly conclusion."