Leclerc retracts Ferrari criticism, blames chassis issue for Hungarian GP loss

Charles Leclerc believes he was on course to win the Hungarian Grand Prix but blames a chassis issue for costing him performance late in the race, restricting his criticism of Ferrari.

Leading from pole position during the first two stints of the race, Leclerc started complaining to Ferrari on team radio, saying, “I can feel what we discussed before the race. We need to discuss those things before doing them.”

A later message said, “We are going to lose this race with these things. We are losing so much time”, before Leclerc then heavily criticized the team as he slipped behind both McLaren drivers.

“This is so incredibly frustrating, we’ve lost all competitiveness," he continued. "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.”

Leclerc’s words were accurate as George Russell overtook him and pulled 15s clear in third place, but the Monegasque says he was informed of a different cause for his lack of pace after the race.

“I need to take back the words I said on 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, and it was actually an issue coming from the chassis and nothing that we could have done differently,” Leclerc said.

“Started to feel the issue on lap 40 or something like that, and then it got worse, lap after lap after lap, and towards the end we were 2s off the pace. The car was just undrivable, but again, I repeat myself, this was an issue and it's an outlier. It shouldn't ever happen again.

“I'm still very disappointed. We’ve had one opportunity this year to win a race, which I think was this weekend. The first stint was perfect. The first laps of the second stint were really good as well. I think we were on pace to try and win that race. The last stint was a disaster when I started to have an issue with the chassis.”

Leclerc says Ferrari was uncertain of the cause based on the data it was seeing during the race itself, but he knew the victory was getting away from him at the start of his final stint.

“I think it was quite tricky," he said. "Otherwise, we probably would have known and they would have told me. Apparently it wasn't as obvious on data, however, now we can definitely confirm that there was a problem.

“When I started to feel the issues, I didn't really know where that came from. I thought it was from a change we did on the front wing at the pit stop, being too aggressive. Then, of course, it got a lot worse. It seemed a bit off to me. When I first felt the very strange behavior of the car, I thought, 'If this is staying, it's going to slip away from us.'”