Charles Leclerc went from hero to zero at the Hungarian Grand Prix as he went from pole position to finishing fourth after a meltdown over team radio
Ferrari have confirmed they will launch an investigation into the catastrophic decline of Charles Leclerc and his car at the Hungarian Grand Prix. It proved a torturous weekend for the Monegasque driver, who experienced a dramatic change of fortune within 24 hours.
He stunned everyone by securing pole position, leaving the McLaren pair of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris trailing in his wake. And then, in the race, Leclerc got off to a strong start and initially appeared destined for a first victory of 2025.
However, he endured a dramatic downfall and ultimately crossed the line in fourth place. He was initially left seething with his Ferrari colleagues, unleashing his fury over the radio in one moment of rage before George Russell overtook him in the Mercedes.
“This is so incredibly frustrating,” raged Leclerc. “We’ve lost all competitiveness. You just have to listen to me, I would have found a different way of managing those issues. Now it’s just undriveable. It’s a miracle if we finish on the podium.”
Speaking in the media pen after the race, Leclerc retracted what he had said having been informed that the issue he had assumed had arisen was not actually the cause of his drop in pace. Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur has pledged to examine what went wrong in a bid to prevent a recurrence following the summer break.
“The situation was quite strange,” the Frenchman said. “We were in control for the first 40 laps of the race. We were very in control during the first stint, a bit more difficult during the second, but it was still manageable, and the last was a disaster.
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“[The car was] very difficult to drive, the balance was not there. Honestly, we don’t know exactly what happened. It means we have to investigate to see if something broke on the chassis side or whatever.
“At one stage, I thought that he would never finish the race, so we can be lucky, in this situation, to score points from P4. But it’s really frustrating for us because we had the first pole position of the season and the first two stints went pretty well, but then we completely lost the pace and the path of the weekend with the last one.”
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Leclerc was also slapped with a five-second time penalty for erratic driving during his tussle with Russell. He subsequently withdrew his furious radio outburst but offered no specifics about the ‘chassis issue’ he was told about following the chequered flag.
“I need to take back the words I said on the radio because I thought it was coming from one thing, and then I got a lot more details since I got out of the car,” said the Monegasque racer. “It was actually an issue coming from the chassis and nothing we could have done differently. I started to feel the issue on lap 40 or something like that.
“It got worse, lap after lap after lap and towards the end we were two seconds off the pace. The car was just undriveable. I repeat myself, this was an issue and it’s an outlier. It shouldn’t ever happen again. I am still very disappointed.”
