Lewis Hamilton looked and sounded the lowest he has been as he suggested his early qualifying exit compared to Charles Leclerc's pole at the Hungarian Grand Prix means Ferrari probably needs to "change the driver".
Since his last Formula 1 title challenge in 2021, Hamilton has had three rollercoaster seasons with Mercedes and a challenging time at Ferrari since his big 2025 move.
Apart from a pole and win in the China sprint race early in the season, Hamilton has struggled to score big results, while Leclerc has been on the podium five times and earned Ferrari's first grand prix pole position of the year at the Hungaroring on Saturday.
Hamilton, though, was knocked out in 12th in Q2 after trailing Leclerc by several tenths throughout practice - fulfilling his pessimistic Thursday prediction that there was no chance of a surprise result this weekend at a track he has typically excelled at.
Across various media appearances after qualifying, Hamilton described himself as "absolutely useless", said he "drove terribly", and that "not once this weekend" did he feel in contention for a better result.
It was an alarmingly downbeat and self-critical assessment even for Hamilton, who has been through several low ebbs this year and in past seasons.
Hamilton is often quiet and short with his answers when he has a poor result, especially when he feels responsible for it and is facing the media soon after a competitive session has finished. In the past, when his media debriefs took place later in the evening, he would often be more expansive even when it had been a difficult day.
Even factoring in the proximity to such a disappointing session and harsh contrast with Leclerc's result, though, this was a particularly downcast characterisation of his performance all weekend, not just in qualifying.
In an F1 TV interview, when told it obviously wasn't the case that he was "just useless", Hamilton replied: "It clearly is. I just drove terribly. It is what it is."
And clarifying a radio message to Ferrari when speaking to Sky Sports F1, he said: "It's me every time."
Hamilton added: "The team has no problem. You've seen the car's on pole.
"So, we probably need to change driver."
This has echoes of Hamilton's final year at Mercedes when, amid a clearly difficult mid-season spell, he would swing from feeling like he was past his best to wondering what was going wrong on his side of the garage every time in qualifying.
Now, though, Hamilton is taking all the blame - which might be inevitable on a day Leclerc put Ferrari on pole, but is still a case of Hamilton holding his hands up almost in resignation, even if he is being over-the-top.
Asked by The Race when he spoke to the written media what had gone wrong in Q2, Hamilton replied: "Nothing, just wasn't very good. Just not fast."
He said it is "nothing to do with the car" and just a case of him struggling in it, and his appraisal of whether a risk of rain could help him on Sunday amounted to: "I don't think anything can help me right now."
The only time Hamilton flickered to a degree of positivity was when he remarked on Leclerc's performance and a breakthrough team result.
Asked by The Race about Leclerc's pole and what a boost it was for Ferrari after its recent upgrades, Hamilton said: "It's amazing for the team. Clearly the car is capable of being on pole. So big congrats to Charles and to the team."
As a counterpoint to Hamilton's emotional reaction, though, Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur believed it has ended up looking a lot worse than it actually was.
Hamilton was 0.015s from making it into Q3 and 0.25s slower than Leclerc in the second segment, so only a tiny margin prevented him being in the top 10 shootout, where very different conditions mixed up the Q3 order.
Plus, as Vasseur explained, had Ferrari managed Q1 better, Hamilton would have had two new sets of softs in Q2 instead of doing his first run on a used set - which, given the margins at play, could have been decisive.
"It's better to start from pole in Budapest than P11 [Hamilton's actual starting position is 12th], and it will be difficult, but you cannot compare P1 and P11, you need to compare one tenth in Q2," Vasseur told The Race.
"This is more the issue because Charles was not far away to be out in Q2 and you need to keep this in mind in your analysis of the day.
"But it is what it is. We have to do a better job to not be exposed in Q1 and Q2, and the fact we had to use extra sets in Q1, it was not a good start to the session and then you have one set for Q2."
