Charles Leclerc started the Hungarian Grand Prix from pole position and led the race through the first two stints. Ferrari looked competitive and Leclerc believed they had a real chance to win.

“It was one of our very few chances to win a race this year,” Leclerc said. “The first stint was perfect. The first laps of the second stint were really good as well. I think we were in pace to try and win that race.”

After his second pit stop on lap 41, Leclerc came out seven seconds behind Lando Norris. Norris was on a one-stop strategy with older tyres while Leclerc had fresher tyres. Normally, Leclerc should have been able to close the gap, but instead his lap times became slower. He could not catch Norris and was quickly overtaken by Oscar Piastri and George Russell.

Leclerc told his team over the radio that the car had become “undriveable” and that he had “lost all competitiveness”. At the time, he thought the issue came from a front wing change made during the pit stop. He also said he was frustrated that Ferrari did not listen to his concerns during the race.

After the race, Leclerc said that he had been wrong about the front wing. He learned that the issue was caused by a problem with the car’s chassis which started around lap 40 and got worse with each lap.

“First of all, I need to take back the words I said on the radio because I thought it was coming from one thing,” Leclerc said. “But then I got a lot more detail after I got out of the car. It was actually an issue coming from the chassis and nothing that we could have done differently.”

He said the car’s performance dropped so much that they were around two seconds slower per lap by the end.

“The car was just undriveable,” he added. “When I first felt the very strange behaviour of the car, I thought, if this is staying, it’s going to slip away from us.”

The issue was not visible in Ferrari’s data during the race which made it hard for the team to respond.

“I think it was quite tricky. Otherwise, I probably would have known and they would have told me,” he said. “Apparently, it was not obvious on the data. However, now we can definitely confirm that there was a problem.”

Meanwhile, George Russell had a different theory. He said that Mercedes believed Ferrari may have been running the car too low to the ground which can lead to illegal plank wear. Russell suggested Ferrari might have raised tyre pressures or changed engine modes in the final stint to avoid being disqualified.

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

When told that Leclerc said the problem came from the chassis, Russell replied, “Yeah, he’s not going to tell you they’re close to being illegal.”

Ferrari had plank wear problems earlier in the season but in this case the FIA checked all cars after the race and confirmed that Leclerc’s car was legal.

Leclerc also received a five-second penalty and one penalty point for erratic driving while fighting Russell on track. In the end, the Monegasque finished fourth after what had looked like a promising race. He was clearly disappointed and said that this issue should never happen again.