Ferrari to investigate Charles Leclerc near-retirement 'disaster'

Fred Vasseur has confirmed Ferrari is to investigate the reason why Charles Leclerc went from race-winning hopeful to the brink of retirement in the Hungarian Grand Prix.

After scoring Ferrari's first pole position of the season on Saturday, Leclerc then showed superb pace to control the race through to his second stop after 40 of the 70 laps.

Beyond that, however, Leclerc went backwards, resulting in him cryptically bemoaning "things" he said should not have happened, which left him angry and frustrated over the radio.

The Monégasque had to annoyingly settle for fourth, losing a podium place late on to Mercedes' George Russell, who suggested after the race that the reason for Leclerc's dramatic loss of pace was that Ferrari raised tyre pressures to limit the plank wear and avoid a potential disqualification as the car had previously been running so low.

That was laughed off by Vasseur, whilst Leclerc apologised to the team for his radio remarks after learning post-race of a possible chassis issue.

Asked why Leclerc was not informed of what was happening with his car, speaking to the media, including RacingNews365, Vasseur said: "The situation was quite strange.

"We were in control for the first 40 laps of the race. We were very in control during the first stint, a bit more difficult during the second, but it was still manageable, and the last was a disaster.

"[The car was] Very difficult to drive, the balance was not there. Honestly, we don't know exactly what happened. It means we have to investigate to see if something broke on the chassis side or whatever.

"At one stage, I thought that he would never finish the race, so we can be lucky, in this situation, to score points from P4.

"But it's really frustrating for us because we had the first pole position of the season and the first two stints went pretty well, but then we completely lost the pace and the path of the weekend with the last one."

Leclerc hit by 'snowball effect'

Vasseur confirmed the drop in pace was immediate from his first lap of the final stint, which was alarming after previously matching the pace of the chasing Oscar Piastri in his McLaren.

"On the first lap of the last stint, he lost something like one second," said Vasseur, which then sparked a message from Leclerc.

Clarifying, Vasseur added: "He asked us if we didn't make a mistake on the front wing when we adjusted it [in the pit stop]. No, we completely lost the pace.

"And then it's perhaps a bit of a snowball effect, but at the end of the day, from lap 38 to 43 we lost at least eight-tenths [per lap]."

Asked whether anything could be seen on the car, he replied: "So far, no, but probably, yes."