Charles Leclerc has admitted that Ferrari “paid the price” with its lacklustre one-lap pace as he missed out on a podium position at Formula 1’s Hungarian Grand Prix.
Leclerc put an end to a wretched streak since claiming an elusive win in Monaco as he climbed two spots to come home as the lead Ferrari car in fourth in Budapest.
The Monegasque produced a surging start to dispatch team-mate Carlos Sainz and extended his opening stint to come back at Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen.
But although Ferrari executed an undercut on Verstappen at the second stop, Leclerc was powerless to stop the Dutchman coming past on nine-lap fresher Mediums.
However, Verstappen’s incident with Hamilton handed Leclerc the position back and he nursed his fast-degrading rubber to the end, 4.8s behind Hamilton’s Mercedes.
Despite not having new Hards available, Leclerc has explained how his earlier-than-planned stop constituted Ferrari’s single chance to make up places due to dirty air.
“Yeah, it was better than expected,” Leclerc said. “I felt like the pace was quite strong, a track like Budapest is very difficult to actually overtake, but we were in a good place.
“The first stint was strong, the second stint was also very strong.
“Then we had to make a choice for the last stint in order to, whether we boxed with Lewis and we took the place to Max, or whether we stayed out with Max.
“We decided to come in, which I think wasn’t a bad choice.
“But that made our last stint very tricky because I was on used Medium and very used Medium when Max came back, so it was a tricky race, but the pace was there, so that was good.
“But that’s not enough to satisfy me.
“I mean, looking at the overall picture, we are still lacking a lot of pace in qualifying compared to our main competitors, and on tracks like this we will pay the price.”
Leclerc suspects that Ferrari possessed a quicker car than Mercedes in the race, but the turbulence running in Hamilton’s wake meant that overtaking was impossible.
Asked whether he expected to be in a battle with Mercedes amid the team’s recent resurgence, Leclerc replied: “We expected to be very close.
“But I felt like we had a bit of an edge, because on a track where dirty air is so important, I mean, it’s so detrimental for the car behind.
“I felt like I could follow quite nicely, so I think we had a strong car.”
Leclerc has stressed that the marque must solve its accentuated struggles under single-lap conditions to avoid leaving the drivers with added work to do in the race.
He has reiterated that the four-tenth deficit to McLaren was representative and is concerned the margin will grow on tracks that expose Ferrari’s bouncing weakness.
“I mean, I think the qualifying pace, especially with Carlos, who had done a very good lap, I think that’s the gap,” he acknowledged.
“So it might be specific to this track, but on a track like this, we were four-tenths behind, and I don’t think there was much more in the car.
“On a track like Spa, I think this is going to be a real test for us, because it’s probably the track where I would expect our issues to be the most visible.
“We’ll see if we have the confirmation that there’s still a lot of work to do before we get our issues fixed, or whether the upgrades of this weekend helped us take a step forward.”
Ferrari introduced a revised floor last weekend which was intended to help cure the high-speed bouncing that has been prevalent since an upgrade package in Spain.
Leclerc is optimistic that the new part helped to mitigate the problem, but he has cautioned that a return to a high-speed track this weekend will represent a true test.
“The understanding is there, it’s going in the right direction for sure,” he confirmed.
“The thing with the kind of issue we are facing is that it’s either on or off, and it’s very difficult to see the improvement.
“Maybe you have it for less time, and what I’m speaking of is mostly the bouncing, but it’s not like you improve the intensity of it, so whenever you have it, you have it.
“We are doing steps in the right direction, whether it will be enough to not have it, I’m not sure yet. I will expect that in Spa it can be an issue again.”
Meanwhile, Leclerc has also conceded that the recurring bouncing even proved to be a hindrance to Ferrari’s prospects on a slower-speed circuit like the Hungaroring.
Asked what Ferrari is lacking to its rivals at the moment outside the bouncing, Leclerc responded: “Pace, just performance in general.
“Also you have to take compromise, even if it’s not a track where you have lots of bouncing.
“You have to take compromise in order to not create it anywhere, even if it’s only two high-speed corners.
“We are maybe also not optimising everything just because we still have a bit of those issues.”
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