Ferrari’s Friday at the Hungaroring circuit was inevitably affected by Charles Leclerc’s crash at the beginning of the second free practice session for the Hungarian Grand Prix. The Monegasque driver lost control of his SF-24 car at Turn 4, pushing too hard, spinning out, and hitting the inner wall. This was a doubly significant mistake: both due to Charles Leclerc’s recent poor results and the team’s approach to the race. His early stop prevented Ferrari from gathering data from both drivers on the long-run simulation.
United team
“We did well in the morning on the single lap, but in the afternoon long runs we had more difficulties because we only had one car and couldn’t make comparisons,” admitted team principal Fred Frederic Vasseur, speaking to Sky Sport F1 at the end of FP2. The head of the Ferrari pit wall, however, defended his driver, acknowledging the mistake but emphasizing that Ferrari wins and loses together.
“Charles Leclerc’s crash? He knows he made a small mistake, but he was going very fast at Turn 4 from the start. Unfortunately, he went a bit too fast. He will reset completely and it will have no impact on qualifying,” the French manager explained – “The main problem is not having done a long-run simulation. The last few races have been difficult for the whole team, not just Charles. There have been some technical issues, and he has sometimes pushed too hard. But it’s useless to point fingers; we win and lose together.” – he pointed out.
Red Bull updates
Frederic Vasseur was also asked to comment on the significant updates introduced by Red Bull on Max Verstappen’s car. The French manager, however, preferred not to focus too much on the development strategies of their rivals: “I haven’t focused on Red Bull,” he commented, “but not being able to test between races, it’s difficult to bring updates. You have to sacrifice a session to understand and develop the car. I think they have done here what we did at Silverstone.” – the Ferrari team boss concluded.
