Charles Leclerc says a chassis problem on his Ferrari Formula 1 car caused the dramatic Hungarian Grand Prix slump that triggered his radio fury, not - as he initially suspected - the team making a front wing set-up change in a pitstop.
Leclerc defeated the McLarens - which had dominated practice - to take pole position and looked well-placed to do likewise in the first half of the race as he kept Oscar Piastri at bay.
Lando Norris’s switch to a one-stop strategy proved decisive for the race win but Leclerc couldn’t even hold onto second - being passed by both Piastri and George Russell’s Mercedes as he tumbled to a distant fourth in the final stint, 42.6 seconds from the race lead.
He was convinced his loss of pace was down to Ferrari making a set-up change that he implied on team radio he had warned against.
"This is so incredibly frustrating. We have lost all competitiveness,” Leclerc raged to his team midway through the final stint as he fell away from the McLarens and came under threat from Russell.
“You just had to listen to me. I would have found a different way of managing these issues. Now it's just undriveable. Undriveable. It will be a miracle if we finish on the podium.”
But he retracted those comments as soon as the race finished.
“First of all, I need to take back the words I said on the radio because I thought that it was coming from one thing and then I got a lot more detail since I got out of the car and it was actually an issue coming from the chassis and nothing that we could have done differently,” Leclerc explained.
“I started to feel the issue on lap 40 or something like that and it got worse lap after lap after lap. Towards the end we were two seconds off the pace and the car was just undriveable.
“Again, I repeat, this was an issue and it’s an outlier. It shouldn't ever happen again. But I’m still very disappointed.”
Asked by The Race when he’d realised he was going to lose the grand prix, Leclerc revealed that his fury had been because he thought a set-up change in a pitstop had triggered the car’s unpredictable behaviour and loss of pace.
“I thought it was from a change we did on the front wing at the pitstop, being too aggressive,” he replied.
“But then of course it got a lot worse and then it seemed a bit off to me.
“But when I first felt the very strange behaviour of the car, I thought ‘OK, if this is staying, it’s going to slip away from us’.”
Asked why Ferrari hadn't informed him of the nature of the chassis problem during the race, Leclerc replied: "I think it was quite tricky otherwise they would have known and they would have told me. Apparently it wasn’t as obvious on data. Now we can definitely confirm that there was a problem."
Leclerc believes Ferrari lost its only shot at a grand prix victory in 2025 with this problem, as he is convinced McLaren’s pace is out of reach in the remainder of the season.
“On a track like this, what gave me hope of winning was that we were starting first and with the dirty air it’s a struggle to get past,” he said.
“I think Oscar probably had a bit more pace than me but couldn’t overtake.
“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 probably the one opportunity of the season and we had to take it. But unfortunately with this issue we couldn’t do much.”
Leclerc was given a five-second time penalty, which didn’t change his result, for moving under braking when trying to hold off Russell during their battle for third.
He felt he hadn’t done anything illegal but was able to shrug the penalty - and Russell vociferously calling for it on team radio - off as it had no consequences.
“I knew I was on the limit,” Leclerc admitted. “I don’t have much opinion about it.
“I felt like I moved before braking and then I braked, obviously angling my car towards the apex, which is normally what I do.
“But I can imagine George being quite vocal on the radio. It’s normally the case.
“I don’t mind. If there had been a safety car at the end of the race and I had taken a 5s penalty, I probably would be a lot more frustrated but it wasn’t the case.”
