Lewis Hamilton has described his driving experience in the Ferrari at last weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix as ‘miserable’ following another difficult race in red.

The seven-time world champion managed to fight his way back from seventh into fifth having been given a three-place grid penalty after qualifying, but once he was comfortably in P5 he struggled to make any kind of impression on the top four cars.

Whilst team-mate Charles Leclerc managed to secure second in Sunday’s race, Hamilton finished almost 50 seconds behind his team-mate, and came a distant fifth.

At the end of the race, Hamilton asked race engineer Riccardo Adami, ‘are you angry with me?’, to which the Italian did not provide an answer over team radio.

Hamilton baffled by lack of pace

Hamilton’s downbeat attitude at the end of the race in Monte Carlo was in complete contrast to his beaming smile at the end of the previous week’s Imola GP, where he managed to put his Ferrari in fourth, just over a second off a podium finish.

However, the 40-year-old still sits down in sixth in the drivers’ championship on 63 points, after eight grands prix weekends with his new team, with neither championship within touching distance after the opening stages of the campaign.