Ferrari at a loss to explain Leclerc’s Hungary F1 collapse

The Ferrari Formula 1 team says it will need a full investigation into Charles Leclerc’s unspecified car problem that saw him lose a Hungarian Grand Prix podium.

Leclerc took a surprise pole over McLaren’s Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris, before leading the opening stages of Sunday’s 70-lap contest. He looked set to at least finish on the podium until his SF-25 dramatically lost performance across the final stint. 

That included dropping behind both McLarens, plus Mercedes’ George Russell late on, and Ferrari was surprised by Leclerc’s sudden downfall. 

Its driver initially thought Ferrari had made a front wing adjustment during the second and final pitstop that destroyed his car balance, but later corrected himself after being informed of the inherent car problem.

Team principal Fred Vasseur said on Sunday night it was too early to conclude what the exact issue was, but he suggested that the extent of Leclerc’s pace loss went far beyond its usual measures to protect against plank wear in the latter half of a grand prix.

“Once we lost the pace [in previous races], we lost two or three tenths. Today we lost two seconds. A bit different,” Vasseur claimed.

“The last stint was a disaster, very difficult to drive, the balance was not there, and honestly we don’t know exactly what’s happened so far.

“We have to investigate if we have something broken on the chassis side. At one stage I thought that we would never finish the race, that we were lucky to score points for fourth. It’s surprising, because if we had known before [we would have solved it].”

Leclerc was also adamant Hungary was an isolated incident. “No, it was a one-off,” he said. “We need to look at it for it to never ever happen again, because the car was just undriveable. But I don’t think it’s something that we’ll have anywhere else again.”

Russell, meanwhile, said Mercedes suspected Ferrari’s well documented ride height issues were behind Leclerc’s downfall.

Leclerc’s team-mate Lewis Hamilton was disqualified in China for excessive plank wear, and Ferrari has since had to take measures to prevent further legal trouble, including raising the car, reducing engine modes and increasing tyre pressures to avoid its cars from bottoming.

“The only thing we can think of is they were running the car too low to the ground, and they had to increase the tyre pressures for the last stint,” Russell told Sky.

“Because they were using an engine mode that was making the engine slower at the end of the straight, which is where you have the most amount of plank wear.”