Lewis Hamilton makes a shocking plea to Ferrari as teammate Charles Leclerc secures pole position

A downbeat Lewis Hamilton has called on Ferrari to drop him, as he's not performing well compared to teammate Charles Leclerc. In what was a stark contrast in performance between the two drivers, the F1 veteran was knocked out in Q2, while his teammate went on to take a shock pole position, beating both the McLaren drivers.

The F1 Hungarian GP has always been Lewis Hamilton's favorite hunting ground. The driver has as many as 8 wins around the track, and it's not even a consequence of doing it with the dominant Mercedes alone. Charles Leclerc, on the other hand, has had a series of disappointing runs at the Hungaroring.

Coming into the weekend, this was one of the races where Charles Leclerc was expected to trail Lewis Hamilton. Throughout the weekend, however, Leclerc has had an edge on his teammate. The qualifying session was tricky from the very beginning, as it was the last-minute laps from both Ferrari drivers that helped them secure a Q2 slot.

Lewis Hamilton was not this lucky in Q2, as his lap was not good enough to progress through to Q3, while Charles Leclerc made his way through. In a way, the contrast was even bigger at the end of qualifying, as the Ferrari driver produced a magical lap that was good enough for pole position.

A downbeat Lewis Hamilton faced up to the media and told Sky Sports that maybe Ferrari needs to change the driver because his teammate is putting the car in pole position. 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."

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Lewis Hamilton's teammate on securing pole position

Lewis Hamilton's teammate Charles Leclerc ended up securing Ferrari's first pole position of the season with a stunner of a lap. The driver pulled that one out of the hat and beat both McLaren drivers at the end of the season, where it had not been the smoothest ride for either of them. Talking about the lap, the driver was still buzzing, as he termed it the best of his career, he said,

“Today, I don’t understand anything at Formula 1. Honestly, the whole qualifying has been extremely difficult. When I say extremely difficult, it’s not exaggerating. It was difficult for us to get to Q2, it was difficult for us to get to Q3. Q3, the conditions changed a little bit. Everything became a lot trickier, and I knew I just had to do a clean lap to target third."

He added,

“At the end of the day, it’s pole position. I definitely did not expect that. I could definitely feel it (the grip change) a lot, and I was also on the lower side of the downforce, so when the rain started in Q2, I was just hoping that it wouldn’t stay there. It didn’t, the conditions changed which made everything very tricky, and at the end, we are on pole position. Honestly, I have no words. It’s probably one of the best pole positions I’ve ever had. It’s the most unexpected, for sure."

Lewis Hamilton will be starting the race in P12, but it would be interesting to see what mood he is in tomorrow before the race.