Dominant session, but there’s a problem
The Ferrari and in particular Charles Leclerc were major protagonists in the first free practice session in Hungary. The Monegasque driver recorded the best time of the session with almost half a second advantage over Max Verstappen, and Lewis Hamilton’s other red car achieved the third fastest time of the day. So, everything perfect in Maranello? Not exactly.
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In fact, in the final minutes of FP1, Leclerc was the victim of an as yet unclearly identified technical problem that forced his SF-26 to stop in the pit lane – practically at the FIA weighbridge area – with no further possibility of moving, so much so that Ferrari mechanics had to come directly from the garage to manually push car #16 back to the garage.
For #Leclerc it seems like something with the engine because the revs suddenly drop… it could be that the very used PU gave up. Let’s see #HungarianGP pic.twitter.com/nTj4SIsj2R
— Federico Albano (@Fred__18) July 24, 2026
Over the radio, Leclerc only warned, saying that “something broke“; the team called him back to the pits but he didn’t have time to reach the Ferrari pit box. It’s difficult to identify with certainty the problem that occurred to the Silverstone winner, but the main suspect seems to be the power unit. Our Federico Albano, analyzing Leclerc’s car telemetry, also suggested that the problem might depend on the power unit.
Old power unit?
To reassure Ferrari fans, however, it should be remembered that the one used by Leclerc today was a ‘Friday’ power unit, therefore old and very worn. If this were indeed the reason for the early stop, there is no reason to think that this problem should recur at other, decidedly more important moments of the weekend, such as qualifying or the race, in which Ferrari will fit decidedly fresher and ‘healthier’ power units on the Monegasque’s car.
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