Ferrari ‘disaster’ triggers full investigation after F1 rival makes ‘close to illegal’ claim
Charles Leclerc has had the better of Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari in F1 2025
Fred Vasseur, the Ferrari team principal, has vowed that the team will investigate the cause of Charles Leclerc’s mysterious loss of pace during the Hungarian Grand Prix.
It comes after George Russell, the Mercedes driver, raised the theory that Ferrari was forced to raise Leclerc’s tyre pressures, as well as switch to a more conservative engine mode, to guard against a potential disqualification.
Ferrari to hold investigation over Charles Leclerc pace loss as leading theory emerges
Additional reporting by Thomas Maher
Leclerc claimed Ferrari’s first pole position of the F1 2025 season in Budapest to line up ahead of the dominant McLarens of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris on the grid.
After leading the first half of the race, Leclerc’s pace deserted him in the final stint as he slipped out of the podium places, ultimately finishing a distant fourth after receiving a five-second time penalty for ‘erratic driving’ while battling Russell for third.
Leclerc was heard describing the SF-25 as “undriveable” over team radio, accurately predicting at one stage that it would be a “miracle” if he managed to salvage a podium finish.
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The leading theory for Leclerc’s race of two halves suggests that Ferrari was forced to increase his tyre pressures for the final stint to guard against excessive wear to the skid blocks underneath the car.
Reports in Italy have suggested that Ferrari was forced to employ similar measures at the Spanish Grand Prix earlier this season. Lewis Hamilton, Leclerc’s team-mate, described the car as “the worst it’s ever been” on that occasion.
Ferrari has struggled with a persistent ride-height issue since the start of the season, resulting in Hamilton being disqualified for excessive skid-block wear at the second round in China.
The team has been forced to raise the car’s ride height in the months since to prevent a repeat, with Leclerc and Hamilton instructed to lift and coast at the end of straights to protect the skid blocks from being pressed into the track surface by aerodynamic load.
After Leclerc was heard reporting engine cuts in Hungary, it has been suggested that Ferrari has also been managing the ride-height issue by programming its power unit more conservatively.
It was hoped that Ferrari’s major rear-suspension upgrade, introduced at last month’s Belgian Grand Prix, would go some way to rectifying the ride-height woes with the SF-25.
Yet despite improving the car’s feel, particularly on Leclerc’s side of the garage, it appears Ferrari is still being forced to take steps to manage the car’s ride height during races.
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Speaking to media including PlanetF1.com, Vasseur described Leclerc’s final stint in Hungary as a “disaster.”
And revealed that the team will launch an investigation to get to the bottom of what caused his loss of pace.
He said: “It’s true that the situation was quite strange.
“We were under control the first 40 laps of the of the race. We were very in control in the first stint. The second one was a bit more difficult, but it was still manageable.
“And last stint was a disaster: very difficult to drive, the balance was not there.
“Honestly, we don’t know exactly what’s happened so far. I think that we have to investigate if something was broken on the chassis side or whatever.
“It’s really frustrating for us because I think we did the first pole position of the season, the first two stints going pretty well and we lost completely the pace of the weekend in the last one.”
Asked if the issue that affected Leclerc in Hungary was different to previous instances of Ferrari losing pace during a race, he added: “Yeah.
“[On previous occasions] once we lost the pace, we lost two or three tenths. Today we lost two seconds. It’s a bit different.”
Even while leading, Leclerc was insisted that Ferrari risked letting the race get away from it unless it listened to him over certain matters.
Asked if Leclerc’s comments earlier in the race were related to the issues he suffered later on, Vasseur clarified that the driver’s concerns were about the management of the car’s ERS system instead.
He said: “No, no, no. It was a completely different story about energy management.
“The first lap of the last stint, he lost something like one second at one stage.
“And perhaps the message that also you interpret, he asked us if we did a mistake on the front wing when we adjusted the front wing [during the pit stop], but [no that was] not [the case].
“We lost completely the pace and then snowball effect.
“But at the end of the day, I think from Lap 38 to 43 we lost at least eight tenths [per lap].”
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Speaking after the race, Russell claimed that Leclerc’s Ferrari was “close to being illegal” before the Scuderia employed its tactics with tyre pressures and engine modes to protect the plank.
He said: “I saw how slow he was, so I presumed something was not right.
“He [Leclerc] is not going to tell you that they’re close to being illegal.
“The only thing we can think of is they were running the car too low to the ground and they had to increase the tyre pressures for the last stint.
“[Ferrari] were using an engine mode that was making the engine slower at the end of the straight, which is where you have the most amount of plank wear.
“That’s the only thing we can think of based upon the lap times and the engine mode they were running and stuff like that.”
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