“I’m looking forward to coming back,” Lewis Hamilton uttered, at a barely audible volume. “Hopefully I’ll be back, yeah.”
The second part of his answer – relating to the next race after Formula 1’s summer break – was not as dramatic as it may seem. So hard it was to hear the seven-time world champion, he was asked to repeat himself, and did so a little more forcefully, without the use of the word “hopefully” appearing to be fully considered.
It’s a demeanor the Formula 1 world has seen many times from Hamilton. He’s not good at handling disappointment in the sense that he will often revert to one-word answers at little more than a whisper. It tells you everything about how he’s feeling, but it makes what he says extremely hard to hear and understand.
And when that happens, the lack of clarity over the words Hamilton uses can lead to assumptions being made, or misinterpretations of his comments.
Hungary was a particularly notable example, as he told broadcasters after qualifying that he was “absolutely useless,” adding to Sky Sports: “The team has no problem. You’ve seen the car is on pole, so… We probably need to change driver.”
Those quotes quickly snowballed into speculation he could walk away from Ferrari midseason, but that would be reading far too much into it – even if attempts to get him to speak more positively a day later also fell flat.
“That is Lewis wearing his heart on his sleeve,” his former boss Toto Wolff said. “It’s what he thought when he was asked after the session. It was very raw. He was down on himself.
“We had it in the past when he felt that he’d underperformed in his own expectations. He has been that emotionally transparent since he was a young adult. He will beat himself up. But he’s the GOAT and will always be the GOAT.
“[Nothing] will take that away, no single weekend or race season which hasn’t gone to plan. That’s something he needs to always remember – that he’s the greatest of all time.”
Wolff wasn’t being reflective, more linking the tendency to slip into such a downbeat move to just one of the many complex aspects that have powered Hamilton to the highest of highs in the past, and an overall wins record that he extended last summer.
“Lewis has unfinished business in Formula 1,” Wolff continued. “In the same way that Mercedes underperformed over this latest set of regulations, we never got happy with ground-effect car, in the same way it [affects] him. Maybe it is linked to driving style.
“He shouldn’t go anywhere next year. There are brand-new cars which are completely different to drive. New power units which need an intelligent way of managing the energy. I hope he’s in for many more years. Next year is an important one.
“If he has a car underneath him which he has confidence in and which does what he wants, then yes [he can win an eighth title]. If he has a car which isn’t giving him the feedback that he wants – like the Mercedes of the past few years or the Ferrari which seems to be worse – then not.
“But you ask me if he still has it? He definitely has it.”

For whatever reason, Hamilton has struggled to take his Ferrari to the edge of its performance envelope, although his boss notes that it’s a complicated picture. Clive Rose/Getty Images
We’ve seen flashes of Hamilton still having it this season. In a car that has yet to win a grand prix and only took its first pole position in Budapest, Hamilton was fastest in Sprint qualifying and duly won the Sprint in China, on just his second race weekend.