Fourth and fifth places for Ferrari at the Hungarian GP on Sunday (26) increased Charles Leclerc’s doubts about the team’s performance in the 2026 Formula 1 season. After the race in Budapest, the Monegasque stated that the team needs to understand why it has been performing well precisely on the tracks where it expected to struggle, while disappointing on circuits considered more favorable.
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“No, definitely not,” Leclerc told the press when asked if he was satisfied with the result. “It’s a disappointing weekend, and I think what stands out most to me after the last three races is that, of those three, there were two where we expected to struggle, and we finished first and second. And in the race where we expected to do well, we finished fourth and fifth.”
In the two previous rounds, Ferrari defied predictions: Leclerc won the British GP, while Lewis Hamilton helped the team secure first and third places. In Belgium, Leclerc finished second and Hamilton fourth. At the Hungaroring, however, a track considered ideal for the SF-26, neither of them managed to reach the podium.
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Leclerc emphasized that the trend affects both sides of the Ferrari garage: “So, clearly, there is a trend, and it’s not that one car is doing well because he is driving exceptionally well; both cars seem to have this trend, of being good on the weekend we expected to struggle and struggling on the weekend we thought we would be good,” he added. “So that needs to be understood.”
The team principal, Fred Vasseur, pointed to the start as one of Ferrari’s execution failures, an assessment shared by the Monegasque: “It’s also true that with a good start, things could have been very different, because on a track like this, there aren’t many overtaking opportunities,” concluded the driver, who is fourth in the drivers’ championship.
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