Disastrous race weekends for Ferrari have seemingly become the ‘new normal’. The Hungarian Grand Prix was the latest example, as Charles Leclerc was once again left defending his team’s questionable tactics during the race on Sunday.
Having started third on the grid behind team mate Carlos Sainz Jnr, Leclerc settled in well on his medium tyres and jumped his team mate when they made their first pit stops. Next he swept past George Russell, who had started on pole, for the lead of the race.
But disaster struck when Ferrari brought Leclerc in for a second time to fit a set of hard tyres. This was a reaction to his championship rival Max Verstappen’s stop and put Leclerc on a tyre they had not run all weekend.
In the unexpectedly cool conditions, Leclerc couldn’t generate enough heat in the tyre, and Verstappen breezed past. Forced to make a third stop for softs, Leclerc had to settle for sixth place, throwing away more precious points in his increasingly doomed championship fight against Verstappen – who won the race despite starting all the way down in tenth.
Speaking after the race, Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto defended their strategy. “When we fitted the hard, our simulation was that it could have been a difficult couple of laps of warm-up, slower than the medium for 10-11 laps, and then it would have come back and been faster by the end of the stint – and it was a 30-lap stint,” he explained.
Ferrari’s expectation the tyre would come in later in the stint proved incorrect, and Leclerc paid the price. Binotto also insisted the car’s performance had not been up to its usual level, describing Hungary as the first race all year Ferrari weren’t quick enough to win.
Unfortunately for Ferrari, errors such as these have been a running theme. And it’s not just their questionable tactical calls which have left Red Bull running away with the title, but driving mistakes and unreliability too.
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Ferrari made a positive start to the season. Three races in, Leclerc had two wins and a second place, propelling him into a healthy championship lead. Their first costly setback in the drivers’ title battle came at Imola, when Leclerc spun while running third. He finished sixth and dropped seven points to race winner Verstappen.
That was followed up by a retirement in Spain due to an…
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