Ferrari walks the plank

Ferrari reckoned the Hungaroring’s layout offered one of its best chances of being competitive in the remaining races after a dispiriting first half of the season in which it had scored not a single grand prix victory. Accordingly, there was a plan. One which involved running the car super-low to harvest the lap time gains resulting. In that way, the team reasoned, the qualifying position would be boosted – and around a circuit on which overtaking is difficult, that would be gold dust.

The matter of controlling the plank wear to ensure the car was still legal at the end of the race could be done through tyre pressures at the pitstops and how the driver managed the car. It was a bold strategy, especially given how Lewis Hamilton had been disqualified from the Chinese Grand Prix for excessive plank wear. But it received an unexpected boost in qualifying when gusting wind changing direction caught out the McLarens, opening the way for Charles Leclerc to set pole. The crosswinds had made the McLarens edgy on corner entry at places where the Ferrari’s understeer (from the greater rear grip of running so low) made it much more driveable.

Leclerc’s first stint of his two-stop race was scintillating as he pulled out a gap on Oscar Piastri’s McLaren. Things began to go awry on his second set of tyres. He remained ahead of Piastri but in contrast to the first stint was now holding the McLaren up. “I can feel what we discussed before the race,” Leclerc radioed. “We need to discuss this before we do it… we are going to lose this race with this thing. I’m now losing so much time.”

Although Ferrari was coy about it after the race, this was almost certainly a reference to running the second stint with higher tyre pressures than the first, so as to control the plank wear. Higher pressures will also increase the tyre temperatures. The combined effect of greater ride height and hotter rubber was hurting Leclerc’s pace.

In addition to higher pressures again at the second stop, Leclerc was instructed to use a deployment map which hurt the car’s end-of-straight speed – as this is where the car runs lowest and imposes the most wear on the plank. At this point, the Ferrari fell disastrously off even its second stint pace and Leclerc was passed by both Piastri and George Russell.

“This is so incredibly frustrating,” he radioed. “We’ve lost all competitiveness. I would have found a different way of managing those issues. It’s undriveable. It’s a miracle if we finish on the podium.”

After the race he was more diplomatic, saying, “I need to take back the words I said on the radio because it was an issue coming from the chassis.”

Regardless of how it was phrased, that was the essential story of the Ferrari’s wildly variable race pace.