Leclerc retracts: Apologies after frustration on the radio due to Ferrari’s mistake

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari driver, has retracted his initial statements after the Hungarian Grand Prix, where he expressed frustration with the team’s strategy. The racer, who started from the pole position, finished in a disappointing fourth position. After the race, Leclerc admitted that he “spoke too quickly” and wished to retract the radio messages where he suggested that Ferrari had cost him the victory and a place on the podium. During the competition, the Monegasque driver expressed his dissatisfaction with the team’s decisions, indicating that valuable opportunities were being missed. “I can feel what we discussed before the race… we need to discuss those things before doing them,” he commented on the radio at one point. Subsequently, he added: “We are going to lose this race with these things. We are losing a lot of time.”

Leclerc’s situation worsened after his second pit stop. “This is incredibly frustrating,” he said. “We have lost all competitiveness. They simply have to listen to me, I would have found a different way to handle those problems. Now it’s simply undriveable. Undriveable. It’s a miracle if we finish on the podium.” Leclerc’s prediction came true. He was overtaken by McLaren’s Oscar Piastri and then by Mercedes’ George Russell, losing positions in the race.

First of all, I need to retract the words I said on the radio because I thought they came from one thing, but then I got a lot more details since I got out of the car. It was actually a problem coming from the chassis and nothing we could have done differently. I started to feel the problem on lap 40 or something like that, and then it got worse, lap after lap, and towards the end we were two seconds off the pace. And the car was simply undrivable.

Charles Leclerc

In subsequent statements, Leclerc explained that the problem was related to the car’s chassis, which limited its performance. “I spoke too quickly, I guess,” he added. Leclerc couldn’t detail the exact cause of the problem, but assured that Ferrari had identified it after the race. “I don’t know yet how it was caused, but we will investigate… I think it was quite complicated. Otherwise, I probably would have known and they would have told me. But yes, apparently it wasn’t so obvious in the data. However, it can now definitely be confirmed that there was a problem.” The driver, who had achieved a surprising pole position on Saturday, lamented that this problem occurred on a weekend where Ferrari had a real chance of winning. “We had a chance this year to win a race, which I think was this weekend. The first stint was perfect. The first laps of the second stint were also very good. I think we were in a rhythm to try to win that race. The last stint was a disaster when I started having a problem with the chassis.”