Fred Vasseur makes Charles Leclerc ‘doubt’ claim that highlights how bad his Hungarian Grand Prix issues were

Follow us on Google Discover

Charles Leclerc was left frustrated after the Hungarian Grand Prix, having dropped out of the podium places for Ferrari.

The Monegasque shocked everyone by earning pole position during qualifying, but in the race his hopes of victory slipped away as he dealt with a problem in the final stint of the race.

Leclerc had been controlling the pace after getting a good start from Oscar Piastri, maintaining a two-second gap to the McLaren driver that prevented him from being undercut.

However, even though Lando Norris had lost places to Fernando Alonso and George Russell at the start, he switched to the alternative strategy and used the clean air in the second stint to close the gap to the leaders.

Leclerc’s pace began to drop in the latter stages of the race, enabling Norris to build up enough of a gap to beat Piastri after his second pit stop. It would become a nightmare scenario for Ferrari, as Leclerc then came under pressure from Russell for third.

Fred Vasseur described how he thought Leclerc would struggle to finish the race when he first reported problems over team radio, when speaking in Ferrari’s official press release.

Fred Vasseur feared Charles Leclerc would not finish the Hungarian Grand Prix

Leclerc ranted at his Ferrari team after they made changes to his car without consulting him that made it “undrivable” in the final stint.

Despite a close call with Russell defending third, he was relegated to fourth in the final laps and handed a five-second time penalty for erratic driving by the FIA Stewards.

Leclerc lost 39 seconds in the final laps, with Vasseur worried that he would even finish the race due to the issues he was dealing with in the car.

“The first two stints of Charles were under control, the first especially was very good, Charles pulling out a gap over the McLarens and Russell. He came under a bit more pressure in the second stint and then in the final one, we were losing two seconds a lap,” said Vasseur.

“Now we need to understand what happened on the chassis that made the car so hard for Charles to drive. At least we got the points for fourth place because there was even some doubt that Charles could finish the race.”

Mystery over Charles Leclerc problems in Hungarian Grand Prix

Leclerc said that it was an “issue on the chassis” that caused the dramatic loss in pace towards the end of the race, but there is still some mystery over what it could be specifically.

Russell thinks it was a combination of tyre pressures and engine modes that Ferrari used, to ensure that the legality plank didn’t wear out beyond the legal limit on Leclerc’s car.

Ferrari were disqualified at the Chinese GP with both cars for excessive plank wear, which happens because their car was too low to the ground.

Anthony Davidson agrees with Russell that it could’ve been the problem for Leclerc, after the Ferrari driver didn’t elaborate any further than it being chassis-related in his media round.