Charles Leclerc reveals Ferrari mystery after Hungarian GP as SF-26 concerns deepen before summer break – Ferrari entered the Hungarian Grand Prix expecting one of its strongest weekends before Formula 1’s summer break.
Instead, the Scuderia left Budapest without a podium and with more questions than answers. Charles Leclerc finished fourth after benefiting from Lewis Hamilton’s post-race penalty, but the Monegasque admitted Ferrari is struggling to understand why the SF-26 performs so differently from one circuit to another. His comments highlighted growing concerns inside Maranello as the team heads into the second half of the 2026 season.
Ferrari arrived at the Hungaroring encouraged by recent performances that included victory at Silverstone and another strong result at Spa-Francorchamps, despite both circuits appearing less suited to the SF-26 on paper. Hungary was expected to provide an even better opportunity, making Sunday’s outcome particularly frustrating for Leclerc and the team.
Poor start leaves Leclerc fighting an uphill battle
Leclerc’s race was compromised within seconds of the lights going out. Starting from the front row, the Ferrari driver immediately lost ground after suffering excessive wheelspin during the launch before being boxed in approaching the opening corner.
Explaining what happened after the race, Leclerc said:
“Quite simply, when I went through the start procedure and released the clutch, there was much less grip than we expected and I had quite a bit of wheelspin. Then at Turn 1 I was a bit squeezed between Hamilton and Verstappen and had to lift off. From that point on, we found ourselves in fifth place and it became extremely difficult to come back.”
The lost positions proved costly around the tight Hungaroring, where overtaking remains notoriously difficult despite recent circuit modifications.
Although Ferrari attempted to recover through strategy, Leclerc spent much of the afternoon unable to challenge the cars ahead, eventually inheriting fourth place following Hamilton’s penalty rather than earning it on track.
Ferrari cannot explain the SF-26’s inconsistent behaviour
Perhaps more concerning than the result itself was Leclerc’s assessment of Ferrari’s race pace.
The 28-year-old described a car whose balance and tyre performance changed dramatically from stint to stint, despite running similar compounds under comparable conditions.
He explained:
“It’s difficult to understand because it’s not something that only affects us, but perhaps it affects us more than others: everything is very inconsistent. The stint on the softs wasn’t bad, and the first run on the hards was actually quite good. In the second stint on the hards, however, I had no feeling with the car at all, and it was extremely difficult to understand what was happening with the tyres.”
Leclerc continued:
“Then the softs were working well again at the end, but at that point we were on a different strategy compared to the others, and it’s difficult to make a direct comparison. It’s simply very difficult to find consistency with this car.”
Tyre management has become one of the defining factors of modern Formula 1, and Leclerc’s comments suggest Ferrari is still struggling to predict how the SF-26 will react over a race distance.
Rather than suffering from a single weakness, the car appears capable of delivering excellent pace one moment before becoming difficult to drive the next, leaving both drivers and engineers searching for explanations.
Hungary result contradicts Ferrari’s own expectations
The biggest puzzle for Ferrari is not simply that it lacked pace in Hungary, but that the result completely contradicted the team’s own pre-weekend simulations.
Silverstone and Spa were widely expected to expose weaknesses in the SF-26, yet Ferrari emerged with outstanding results. The Hungaroring, meanwhile, looked like one of the strongest opportunities remaining before the summer shutdown.
Instead, the weekend unfolded in exactly the opposite fashion.
Leclerc admitted Ferrari had expected much more.
“There are some question marks. It’s very strange that on two tracks where we expected to struggle, like Silverstone and Spa, we return with a win and a second place, while on a track like this, where on paper we expected a better weekend, it wasn’t.”
He also revealed that Friday’s running may have painted a misleading picture.
“That was the case on Friday, but the Mercedes and Red Bull were running with their engines quite low. By Saturday, we realized we would struggle more: we need to understand why something isn’t in line with our expectations.”
Those comments suggest Ferrari’s simulation tools and trackside data currently do not fully align, making it increasingly difficult for the team to predict competitive performance before each race weekend.
Solving the SF-26 puzzle could define Ferrari’s season
With Formula 1 now entering its summer break, Ferrari has an opportunity to analyse the data before racing resumes.
Leclerc believes the problem is not unique to Ferrari, with the current generation of Formula 1 cars proving notoriously difficult to understand. However, he insists the leading teams will ultimately be separated by who can interpret them most effectively.
Summing up the challenge facing Maranello, he said:
“Clearly, the really strange thing is that it’s the opposite of what we expected based on the last three races. The two races where we thought we’d really struggle, we finished first and second, while the one where we expected to be competitive, we finished fourth and fifth.”
He concluded:
“But that pretty much sums up these cars in general: I think they’re difficult for everyone to understand, we just need to be better than the others at deciphering them. I’ll continue working to understand what causes this inconsistency with the car and why the same sets of tires, doing more or less the same things, can feel completely different from one stint to the next.”
Those remarks underline the scale of Ferrari’s challenge heading into the remainder of the championship.
The SF-26 has already demonstrated race-winning potential, but until Ferrari can consistently predict when that performance will appear, the team risks continuing its pattern of alternating between fighting for victories one weekend and struggling for podiums the next.
Solving that mystery could prove just as important as bringing new upgrades during the second half of the 2026 Formula 1 season.
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