Charles Leclerc admitted he struggled to understand Ferrari’s lack of pace at Sunday’s (26) Hungarian GP, given that the Budapest track appeared to suit the car better on paper. The Monégasque driver complained bitterly about the tires, particularly the hard compound, noting how difficult it has been to find any consistency with the SF-26 so far in the 2026 Formula 1 season.
Starting second on soft tires—unlike his primary rivals—the #16 car suffered from a lack of grip on the dirty side of the track and plummeted to fifth. From that moment on, he found himself stuck behind Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri, Max Verstappen, and Lewis Hamilton, even attempting an alternative strategy to make headway through the field.
In the end, he capitalized on a 5-second penalty handed to his teammate to claim fourth place at the Hungaroring. It was a result far below expectations, especially after strong outings on high-speed tracks in Great Britain and Belgium had fueled hopes of a victory on a circuit better suited to the car’s aero package.
“When I executed the start procedure, the moment I released the clutch, there was far less grip than anticipated. I suffered a lot of wheelspin, and into Turn 1, I ended up squeezed between Lewis and Max. At that point, I had to back off again, and before I knew it, we were fifth. From then on, recovering was extremely difficult,” Leclerc explained in an interview with French broadcaster Canal+.
“What is tricky to understand is that it doesn’t depend solely on us. There is a lot of data to analyze. The soft-tire stint wasn’t bad, and the first stint on the hards was pretty good, but on the second stint, I had zero confidence in the car. It was extremely difficult to figure out what was going on with the tires,” he emphasized.
“By the end, the softs were working well again, but we were on a different strategy compared to everyone else, so making a direct comparison is tough. Still, the feeling was good,” the Monégasque continued, before addressing the SF-26’s inconsistency after performing well on unfavorable tracks and struggling in Hungary.
“It is very hard to find consistency with this car. The strangest part is that the exact opposite of our expectations happened over the last three races. In the two races where we didn’t expect to perform well, everything went according to plan and we finished 1-2. Yet in the race where we anticipated a strong result, we finished fourth and fifth,” he noted.
“But that sums up the general behavior of these cars well. It’s difficult for everyone to understand what is happening, and we need to be better than the rest at figure it out. On my end, I will keep working to understand what causes this lack of consistency and why identical sets of tires perform so differently. They seem to behave in completely different ways. It’s very strange,” he concluded.
Formula 1 now enters the summer break. The 2026 season resumes from August 21–23 with the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort.
