'Useless' Hamilton has gained little from the summer break: 'Actually not much has changed'

17:59, 28 Aug

byMarnik Kok

Lewis Hamilton really needed the summer break. At one point in the first half of the season, he declared himself 'useless' and suggested Ferrari should replace him. How does the Briton view his F1 career after the summer break?

"I'm useless, absolutely useless. So we probably need to change driver," Hamilton exclaimed to Sky Sports, ahead of the summer break, after failing to make it to Q3 in Hungary.

The Ferrari driver is having a tough season with Ferrari and is nearly fifty points behind his teammate.

After the summer break, the drivers gathered again for the start of the second half of the F1 season. GPblog asked Hamilton about his mental state after the harsh quotes towards the end of the first half of the season.

Hamilton surprisingly calm at Dutch GP: 'Little change'

The world champion spoke to the media with notably calm. He also laughed at a joke from one of the journalists, but otherwise Hamilton remained somewhat reserved.

His answer to the question from GPblog, whether there has been any change, was: "Not much has changed necessarily, but the good thing is when you get time to unplug like that, it’s a reset."

Following this, he starts to dig deeper and it turns out that there seems to be some light at the end of the tunnel. Although he doesn't view Ferrari's chances in Zandvoort as particularly high, bit by bit he is starting to look back more positively on the summer break.

From 'Useless' to 'Great potential?'

Hamilton's mood changed throughout his response. "I’ve had time to go through, this past week particularly, the things we want to improve on, processes, things we want to try and change moving forward."

"And I see a lot of potential", he says, despite the Ferrari driver claiming that little has changed over the summer break. A mixed feeling, but he concludes on a positive note. "There’s a lot of positives to take from the first half, even though it didn’t necessarily look the most positive."

"There are lots of positives to take from it, which we’ll take forward and try and build on," the seven-time world champion concluded.