The mysterious issue that denied Charles Leclerc victory at the Hungarian GP: Revealed
It seemed to be the perfect weekend for Charles Leclerc and Ferrari: Pole on Saturday and leading the race on Sunday - until a mysterious problem with his car emerged, which dropped the Monegasque down to P4. Leclerc was furious on the radio and complained about “lost competitiveness” and an “undrivable” Ferrari. But why did his pace drop that massively? Leclerc himself and team principal Fred Vasseur shed light on what really happened.
picture by @artoff1
Not the teams fault?
Assuming to Leclerc radio messages it seemed like Ferrari have made a mistake either prior or whilst the race. It all started off with the Monegasque complaining about something he “felt in the car which was discussed before the race” and that they need to “discuss those things before doing them”. The problem turned from bad to worse as both Mclarens were now running in front of him: “This is so incredibly frustrating, we’ve lost all competitiveness," he said in despair. "You just have to listen to me; I would have found a different way of managing those issues. Now it’s just undrivable. Undrivable. It’s a miracle if we finish on the podium.”
It was assumed that the problem either resulted of underfuelling the car, picking the wrong tyre pressure or a wing adjustment made at the second pitstop. After the race, Leclerc nullified all speculations: “First of all, I need to take back the words I’ve said in the radio because I thought that it was coming from one thing, but then I got a lot more detail since I got out of the car,” Leclerc told the media. “It was actually an issue coming from the chassis and nothing that we could have done differently”, he added. He described the problem occuring around lap 40, getting worse and worse every lap onwards until he was two seconds off the pace.
Fred Vasseur evaluated the situation in a similar way: “And the last stint was a disaster, very difficult to drive, that the balance was not there and, honestly, we don’t know exactly what’s happened so far. It means that we have to investigate if we have something broken on the chassis side or whatever, but at one stage I thought that we will never finish the race, that we can be lucky in this situation to score points of a P4.”
“Only chance to win a race this year”
Leclerc’s frustration went even further as he talked about a golden opportunity: “I'm still very disappointed. We’ve had one opportunity this year to win a race, which I think was this weekend.”
The opportunity would have definitely be there, as Leclerc was able to hold off Piastri in the first stint comfortably - and maybe he is right: That lap on Saturday was magical - the absolute maximum one can get out of that car - and if Ferrari doesen´t improve their performance within the next few races, winning a grand prix in the remainder of this season seems unlikely.
There are issues at Ferrari that need fixing
According to latest statements, the team was not chiefly responsible for the disastrous outcome of the Hungarian GP - however, Leclerc´s frustration already extends over the whole season and the team is going around in circles: The performance is just not there, communication is tense and the drivers are in despair - a lot of work to be done in Maranello ahead of the second half of the season.
written by Tizian Hatzmann, released 3 August, 9:26pm