Ted Kravitz says Charles Leclerc told him something ‘crazy’ about Ferrari struggles

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Charles Leclerc has endured one of the toughest stretches of his Ferrari career lately. He arrives at the Hungarian Grand Prix desperate to change the narrative ahead of the summer break.

After finally conquering the ‘Monaco curse’ and winning on home soil at the end of May, Leclerc was just 31 points behind Max Verstappen in the drivers’ championship. Just four races later (including a Sprint weekend in Austria), that gap has ballooned to 105.

Leclerc has also surrendered second place in the standings to McLaren’s Lando Norris. Teammate Carlos Sainz is just four points behind him despite missing the Saudi Arabian GP through illness.

The Scuderia suffered a double DNF in Montreal a fortnight after the glory of Monaco, and while they came home a respectable fifth and sixth in Spain, it was still a worrying afternoon. That race seemed to confirm that Mercedes had leapfrogged them in the pecking order.

Leclerc would then endure a nightmare weekend in Austria, finishing a race outside the points for the first time in over a year after first-lap contact with Oscar Piastri. Sainz scored a podium in the sister car.

At Silverstone last time out, the 26-year-old walked away empty-handed once again after an ill-judged gamble on the intermediate tyres scuppered any hope of points. He’d been knocked out in Q2 a day earlier.

Charles Leclerc has been trying ‘crazy set-ups’ at Ferrari

Leclerc’s loss of performance isn’t entirely his fault. Ferrari rushed an upgrade onto their car for the Spanish GP and it seems to have backfired.

The Maranello outfit have been dealing with bouncing, a recurring problem with this generation of F1 cars but one their rivals seem to have overcome. This has compromised their aerodynamic performance and left them scrambling for a solution.

Speaking on Ted’s Podbook ahead of the race in Budapest, Ted Kravitz shared what Leclerc had told him about his recent woes. The six-time race-winner says he’s been experimenting more than Sainz in a bid to find a route back to competitiveness.

Leclerc is confident he’ll be able to deliver once he’s able to ‘understand’ the revised SF-24. And he arrives at the Hungaroring with renewed optimism.

“Whether it’s putting on the wrong tyres at the wrong time or breakdowns or whatever it is, it has indeed been a cruel summer and Charles put it down to actually experimenting with the car,” Kravitz said. “He said, ‘look, I’ve done the lion’s share of experimenting with the car. I’ve done crazy setups’.

“I’ve run it high, I’ve run it low, run it, you know, backwards and all of that. When we last did that and I understood the car, it all came together quite nicely. And I’m hoping that that is the case this weekend.”

Why Charles Leclerc could be ‘extremely annoyed’ with Lewis Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton may be regretting his decision to join Ferrari in 2025. At the start of the year, the Prancing Horse was a level above Toto Wolff’s squad, but their seasons have gone in opposite directions.

Now, some in the F1 paddock believe Hamilton has made a mistake. But if Ferrari can push the reset button, or find a way to successfully incorporate their new parts, it may not be long before they’re contending for victories again.

Hamilton and Leclerc will both be aiming for the world championship in 2025. With teams reaching the end of the performance curve in the ground-effect era, there could certainly be an opportunity.

Whatever happens, it’s one of the most highly-anticipated teammate match-ups in modern F1 history. Peter Windsor fears Leclerc may become ‘extremely annoyed’ if Hamilton beats him, and ask the team why they didn’t keep Sainz instead.