Lewis Hamilton defiant after brutal Hungarian GP: "Don't count me out"

Seven-time Formula 1 champion Lewis Hamilton said, "Don't count me out" after a difficult weekend at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

The British driver was particularly hard on himself after a twelfth-place start and finish at the Hungaroring. Following qualifying, Hamilton claimed he was "useless" and Ferrari should consider another driver. 

When asked to clarify his comments following the race on Sunday, he said to Sky Sports F1: "When you have a feeling, you have a feeling. There's a lot going on in the background that is not great."

Despite his cutting comments to the media, the Ferrari driver looked ahead to a reset and recharge during the summer break before coming back for the Dutch Grand Prix on 29-31 August.

“It’s been a challenging weekend and one to move on from," he said in the team's debrief. "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.”

Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Sutton Images via Getty Images

Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur looked for the positives in Hamilton's weekend but also explained that the Maranello outfit will be investigating the severe drop in pace that both the seven-time champion and his team-mate Charles Leclerc experienced.

"As for Lewis, starting on hards, he lost a couple of places and that put him in traffic in a very long DRS train, which is the worst possible scenario," Vasseur explained.

"That’s what decided us to go for a one-stop with him. Looking at the positives, of course yesterday we got our first pole position of the season and for the first part of the race we were matching McLaren in terms of pace and we had a 15 second lead over Russell. But then we lost everything and didn’t have the pace anymore so now we have to investigate why."