Leclerc opens up on his technical issues after heartbreaking result at the Hungarian Grand Prix

F1 Grand Prix, GP Hungary, Hungaroring

Having endured a dramatic slump at Sunday's Hungarian Grand Prix, Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc revealed that a chassis problem on his Ferrari Formula 1 car caused his sudden loss of pace.

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.

After the race, Leclerc has revealed that a technical issue was the cause of his sudden pace loss that saw him drop behind the McLarens of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris and the Mercedes of George Russell.

"I started to feel the issue in lap 40 or something like that, and then it got worse, lap after lap after lap, and towards the end we were two seconds off the pace. And the car was just undriveable.

“It's an outlier. It shouldn't ever happen again, but I'm still very disappointed. We had one opportunity this year to win a race, which I think was this weekend."

Leclerc went on to explain: "The first stint was perfect, the first laps of the second stint were really good as well, and I think we were on pace to try and win that race. The last stint was a disaster when I started to have that issue on the chassis.”

“It wasn't very consistent, but basically every corner it was doing something different. What gave me hope of winning is that we were starting first, and with the dirty air it's a struggle to get past. I think Oscar probably had a bit more pace than me, but couldn't overtake.

Leclerc understandably cut a dejected figure after the disappointing Budapest race as he revealed that he does not expect any remaining track to favour Ferrari's SF-25.

“I don't think we are going into the second half of the season thinking that we can win anywhere, and that's what makes the frustration even bigger, because we knew that this was one opportunity probably over the season and we had to take it, but unfortunately with this issue we couldn't do much," the Monegasque concluded.