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Lewis Hamilton is being caught in the "vicious" F1 trap of an uber-close field in qualifying, magnifying his deficit to Charles Leclerc, one former driver believes.

Hamilton's first year at Ferrari has not gone to plan thus far, with him being without a grand prix podium and firmly being outperformed by team-mate Leclerc.

Hamilton trails Leclerc 10-4 in qualifying with an average pace deficit of 0.241s based on each drivers outright fastest lap across the Saturday session, but the closeness of the field is making that gap wider than it seems.

Owing to the field converging, that near quarter-of-a-second gap is being filled by multiple drivers, meaning Hamilton is being shuffled out by the finest of margins whilst Leclerc fights through to the Q3 pole shootout.

After a torrid session in Hungary, Hamilton claimed he was "useless" and that Ferrari should look at signing "another driver" but former F1 racer Perry McCarthy believes Hamilton is simply being caught in the wrong place, at the wrong time and being caught out by how close the field actually is.

"The problem is that qualifying is so vicious this year as the field is so compact, so if you are just slightly off, then you're going to miss Q3, and that is the big problem," McCarthy told RacingNews365.

"That's caught out other highly talented and experienced drivers, including Charles, and it's happened to Lewis a couple of times. It's been a combination of him not getting the lap or making a mistake, as well as some elements from the team either putting him in traffic or out at the wrong time, and that's caused consternation and friction.

"You've got to look at the character of Lewis, he's 40 now but still has a competitive mindset and knows what he wants to bring to the party, so if something is a little bit off, he's really unhappy, and especially unhappy if he feels it is him.

"But for all these people who make these horrible comments on Twitter about Lewis, if you are 0.2s off Charles Leclerc in qualifying, that 0.2s across a three-mile track, so he's not exactly an old lady out there."

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