'Useless' Lewis Hamilton says Ferrari should replace him
Outside of a sprint win at the second round in China, Hamilton's move from Mercedes to Ferrari has failed to live up to its blockbuster billing and his debut season in red took another sorry twist when he was knocked out of Q2 at the Hungaroring.
The 40-year-old has a record eight wins and nine pole positions here. However, a week after he qualified only 16th at Spa-Francorchamps, he suffered another setback.
Hamilton has now been out-qualified by Leclerc at 10 of the 14 rounds so far and trails his team-mate by 30 points in the standings.
And, in an astonishing admission in the moments after qualifying, Hamilton told Sky Sports: "It's me every time.
"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."
After he failed to progress to Q3, Hamilton emerged from his cockpit and walked towards the Ferrari motorhome holding his gloves in front of his visor to obstruct the full glare of the waiting TV cameras.
Hamilton's lowly grid slot looks set to extend his run without a podium finish to 14 races. Until this season he had never gone more than 10 rounds into a campaign without finishing in the top three.
Championship leader Oscar Piastri and title rival Lando Norris had been expected to fight for pole, but the McLaren men were left to settle for second and third respectively.
Leclerc saw off Piastri by just 0.026 seconds, with Norris only 0.015secs behind the Australian. George Russell finished fourth for Mercedes.
Leclerc said: "Today I don't understand anything in Formula One. Honestly, the whole qualifying was 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. In 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.
"At the end of the day, it's pole position. I definitely did not expect that. 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."
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