Jenson Button believes Lewis Hamilton can take the positives in his recent qualifying and race pace compared to Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc.
Hamilton recently branded his first season at Ferrari as a "nightmare" after a DNF in Brazil after contact in the opening laps with Carlos Sainz and Franco Colapinto - also picking up a penalty for hitting the Argentine.
He remains without a grand prix podium, and has just three chances to save his record of scoring at least one in every season of his F1 career.
However, since labelling himself as "useless" and suggesting Ferrari should sign "another driver" after qualifying 12th in Hungary, Hamilton's performances have picked up over a single lap.
In the seven races since Budapest, Hamilton is, by taking the outright fastest qualifying laps, just 0.102s slower than Leclerc, although he trails 6-1 in the head-to-head, getting ahead in Singapore.
Hamilton banked third on the grid in Mexico, his best result of the season, before an in-race penalty cost him a legitimate chance at banking that elusive podium.
Despite the poor results, Hamilton's former team-mate, 2009 champion Button, believes the breakthrough is close for the seven-time champion.
"He picks up a lot from his team-mates, from Fernando Alonso he learned a lot about how to actually drive a Formula 1 car," Button told the Sky Sports F1 podcast.
"Then, probably the stuff out of the car, he learned more from me, and then then Nico, how to be ruthless, so he's had all these drivers he's learned a lot from, and it is a shame to see him not performing as well as we would expect in the first part of the year.
"It took him longer to get to grips with the car, and from what I see, the issue at the moment is these cars are very unique in the way that you drive them, and every one of them is different.
"So it takes time, every driver struggles when they jump into a new team, but the last few races, the performance has been there.
"There have been a few little things which haven't gone his way, but the performance compared to Charles has pretty much been there in qualifying and the race.
"So I love to see that, and they've just got to fine-tune it a little bit, to not have the little mistakes in qualifying and not affect the lap.
"I think they are on for a podium, everyone wants to see it, and it is such an important thing for the sport to see Ferrari on the podium, to see Lewis on the podium, and it will be great for Ferrari as well, if they can fight for a victory at the end of the season."
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