Lewis Hamilton 'hurting' as Jenson Button compounds his Ferrari misery

will be 'hurt' by 'constantly being slower' than team-mate , according to . Hamilton will have dreamt of hitting the ground running after joining up with the Scuderia, but he has made a rocky start to life with his new team.

Leclerc is 12 points ahead of him in the Drivers' Championship after six weekends of action. Hamilton won the sprint race in Shanghai, but he is yet to finish on the podium in a full-blooded Grand Prix for Ferrari. And there were further signs that the Brit is not yet comfortable in the car during qualifying for the last weekend.

Hamilton suffered the indignity of failing to make it through Q2, which left him 12th on the grid. Leclerc fared slightly better in P8, and converted that into a seventh-place finish on Sunday, with his seven-time world champion team-mate coming home one position back.

Button spent three years alongside Hamilton at McLaren, and he believes his struggle to keep up with Leclerc will be weighing on his mind. After qualifying in Miami, Button told Sky Sports: "I think it is starting to hurt him a little bit, constantly being slower than his team-mate. That's not how Lewis Hamilton is built. He's a winner."

He went on to explain the personality change he has noticed in Hamilton since they raced together between 2010 and 2012.

"Lewis is a different character now than he was when we were team-mates," said Button. "If he was deflated, the next day he was out and on it and super fast. Now, he's much more of a calm personality, he's much more of a rounded character."

Hamilton would go on to prove Button wrong during Sunday's Grand Prix, when a feisty back-and-forth with race engineer Riccardo Adami raised eyebrows among viewers and pundits.

"I've still got my fire in my belly," said Hamilton afterwards. "I could feel a bit of it really coming up there. I'm not going to apologise for being a fighter. I'm not going to apologise for still wanting it. I know everyone in the team does, too."

Hamilton was aggrieved at not getting permission to pass Leclerc despite being on faster tyres. The call did eventually come through, but Hamilton was unable to close the gap on Kimi Antonelli ahead of him, and the two Ferrari stars were ordered to swap back before the end of the race.