From second to fifth
Charles Leclerc started from the second spot on the grid for the Hungarian Grand Prix, but a slow start quickly dropped him to fifth place.
The Monegasque, who started on the dirty side of the grid, indeed spun his tires, immediately being overtaken by Oscar Piastri and ending up sandwiched between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen.
Read more Leclerc: “By Friday Mercedes and Red Bull had engines down on power”
To avoid trouble he lifted off the throttle and thus saw his podium hopes fade away, on a twisty track not so friendly to overtaking like Budapest.
In the end, Leclerc finished the race in fourth place, gaining a position only thanks to the penalty given to Hamilton for exceeding the pit lane speed limit.
Behind the scenes: it wasn’t all Leclerc’s fault
In the usual post-race interviews, Charles Leclerc explained that he did not make mistakes at the start: “I knew it was a crucial moment of the race. I followed the correct procedure but unfortunately for some reason we set up the car based on the level of grip we expected and – for reasons we still need to analyze – we overestimated it.”
Read more Cadillac: two retirements in Hungary and no points in the first half of the season
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In short, in the start setup Ferrari assumed a higher grip level than what was actually found on the innermost part of the grid.
“We knew there was a difference between the left and right side, but the grip was higher than we expected,” admitted Leclerc.
