Lewis Hamilton was wary of answering what he felt was a "personal question" posed by a Sky Sports reporter ahead of this weekend's Belgian Grand Prix.
The seven-time world champion comes into this race on the back of a fourth-placed finish last weekend in Hungary. He had started on pole in Budapest but lost three places at the start and was unable to recover.
After that race, the Mercedes racer reflected on his own performance and suggested that he had not been at his best for more than a year. And those comments were brought up by the Sky reporter as Hamilton spoke to the media on Thursday.
"You questioned whether your own form had fallen off a little bit in the last year or so," said the journalist, before he asked: "I'm just wondering if, at any point in this period, have you ever felt like you'd lost something that you wouldn't get back? Or were you always confident you would get back to your best?"
Pausing for a few seconds to consider the question, Hamilton then replied: "I don't know... I think that's a bit of a personal question. I probably don't really want to go too much into that."
He did, though, go on to give a proper response, adding: "I think the last year-and-a-bit has been difficult with the car we've had and, particularly last year, just not finding myself gelling with the car that we had built and therefore just not being able to live at the potential I know I'm able to compete in.
"When you're hindered with the balance – and that's similar for so many drivers – and the goal is to steer the direction of the development so that you can eventually show your potential and what you're capable of. I think through really hard work, I think we're starting to get there and I think you started to see that particularly from Monaco onwards.
"We've had much more consistent performances, and then the pole position we had in the last race really felt very reminiscent of the olden days for me, so that gives me hope that we're going in the right direction. Hopefully the same for our team."
Meanwhile, Hamilton's future remains a major talking point within the paddock. His current Mercedes deal expires at the end of this year and, despite extensive negotiations and declarations from both sides that an extension is inevitable, no such conclusion has been reached.
And the Brit has warned fans not to expect that to change any time soon. "It might be announced at the end of the year, I don't know," he said, adding: "I've been removed from it from the beginning. I wanted to be able to focus on all the other things that I have going on. The team are working on it in the background. There's no negotiation left, it's just all the small bits."
