Leclerc reveals "very extreme setups" that saw him and Hamilton make mistakes at the start of the season

Ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix, Ferrari driver Charles Lelcerc has revealed the reasons why it was easier for him and for his seven-time F1 champion team-mate Lewis Hamilton to make mistakes at the start of the current season.

Ferrari had enjoyed great success and a resurgance in the second half of last season, with both Charles Leclerc and former Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz claiming victories.

Based on this fine form, Ferrari had been expected to mount a challenge in both the drivers' and teams' championship. However, the Italian team failed to meet these expectations, falling back behind McLaren, Red Bull and Mercedes in the pecking order.

As a result of a development push in recent months, Ferrari managed to turn things around, and although victories currently look impossible due to McLaren's dominant performance, the Scuderia have at least moved themselves up into second place in the pecking order.

Asked about what has changed at Ferrari, Leclerc, who took a brilliant, but hard-fought third place last time out at Spa-Francorchamps, said that the early struggles with the SF-25 forced the team to set up the car 'in very extreme ways."

"In terms of my own performance, as I was saying, I'm very happy with the way I perform. The best moment as a driver, no, because I want to win.

"So, as my own performance, I'm really happy. You always want to improve and obviously, like Silverstone for example, was a very poor weekend from my side.

"Those weekends you want to have the least possible in a season. Apart from that, I'm very satisfied. That is a good thing. I also think the upgrades go in the right direction of making the life of the drivers, Lewis and myself, a little bit easier because at the beginning of the season, it was extremely difficult.

"We had to set up the car in very extreme ways and that made us also do more mistakes. Now we are a bit more in a reasonable window, which helps us to extract the maximum out of the car. It’s good that we see the result.