"We could have won today," claims Leclerc after battling through technical issues at the Hungaroring
Having delivered a storming lap to take pole on Saturday and led the first half of the Hungarian Grand Prix, technical issues saw Charles Leclerc tumble down the order to end up in a disappointing fourth place at the Hungaroring. The Monegasque insists he lost a potential victory due to the reliability issues.
Ferrari endured mixed emotions in Saturday’s qualifying at the Hungaroring. Lewis Hamilton failed to secure anything better than a P12 on the grid after struggling for pace in constantly-changing weather conditions.
On the other side of the garage, Charles Leclerc also looked to uncomfortable behind the wheel of his SF-25, albeit he progressed into the final part of qualifying. With a storming lap, he grabbed pole position on a track where he never really felt himself competitive.
Come the race, the Monegasque had a great start to maintain the lead into Turn 1. During his first stint, he looked very competitive and was able to build up a margin from his closest rival Oscar Piastri.
Although he appeared to be strong during his second stint as well, his pace unexpectedly faded in the last segment of the Mogyoród race which saw him fall back to P4, ending a disappointing day at the Hungaroring.
His team-mate Hamilton started from the hard compound, but spent most of the race in traffic.
Although he looked strong even on used tyres in free air, he found himself in heavy traffic on his second set of tyres again, which meant that he was ended up down in P12, the position which he started the 70-lap race from.
"This is not the outcome we hoped for but there was nothing we could have done to control it considering the issue we had. I got some more insight into what was happening after getting out of the car and it turns out that we had an issue on the chassis that started just about when I began to feel a difference in how the car behaved.
“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.
“We had one opportunity this year, which I think this was this weekend. The first stint was perfect. The first laps of the second stint was pretty good as well. I could pull away in pace to try and win that race.
"It’s frustrating, because I think we could have won today, but we will return after the summer break and give it our all to come back stronger," Leclerc concluded.
