What a pole position for Ferrari with Charles Leclerc. The Formula 1 weekend started well and was perfectly completed in qualifying. However, it’s important not to get carried away. The Ferrari SF-25 is fast in Budapest, but it wouldn’t have been able to challenge the McLaren cars if the track conditions hadn’t suddenly changed. Let’s explain what happened technically and how car number 16 became the fastest of the group.
Ferrari: setup adjustments for qualifying
In terms of balance, Ferrari showed a very good overall adaptation. The team didn’t deviate much from the initial setup used during the first practice sessions. Between Free Practice 3 and qualifying, they changed only one parameter, most likely the wing angle settings. However, from the very first qualifying session, Charles Leclerc asked to revert to the wing settings used in the last practice because he no longer felt comfortable with the new setup.
The SF-25 built a strong lap in the first sector, while the main limitation compared to the McLaren cars was in the middle sector, where the Woking cars adapted much better to the medium and high-speed corners. Additionally, Leclerc often complained about instability under braking at turn 6, as well as at the entry of turn 12. These two sections were the focus of significant work, as the Monegasque driver confirmed during the press conference.
The problems were not fully resolved, partly due to a further upgrade introduced by the McLaren MCL39. In the final sector, Ferrari suffered a delay caused by rear tire overheating. Overall, the Italian car showed a more oversteering balance. In the cornering phases, especially in the last two corners, rear grip gradually decreased, forcing Leclerc to make some small corrections.
In that part of the Hungarian track, the two McLaren cars demonstrated a greater ability to load the tires, achieving optimal traction overall. While Ferrari often showed a more understeering behavior in previous races, at Budapest the setup was chosen to favor excess rotation—a choice linked to the complex technical characteristics of the tire compounds.
Leclerc, why he nailed pole position in Q3
Once again, Ferrari clearly revealed a strong dependence on managing the tire compounds. Track conditions changed significantly throughout qualifying, affecting performance. This was something McLaren failed to read correctly. Two main factors played a role: track temperature dropped by 15°C during qualifying, and the wind direction reversed by 180 degrees.
It might seem trivial, but these cars are highly sensitive to wind, which is also a variable difficult to replicate accurately in simulations. Technically, with lower temperatures, Ferrari managed to keep the car in the optimal tire operating window for longer during the flying laps. This factor directly reduced the performance gap with the McLaren MCL39 cars in the third sector of the Hungarian circuit.
The reason is simple: the rear tires of the SF-25 were able to finish the lap in a significantly better thermal condition. The pole position came as a result, but objectively it was a combination of circumstances that made it possible, even though Ferrari is indeed very fast in Budapest. Not to mention Charles Leclerc’s outstanding performance, who was virtually flawless in Q3.
Today it was very difficult to put together a good lap, due to traffic and the constantly evolving track conditions. However, the Monegasque driver succeeded brilliantly. In the image above, we can analyze each driver’s ideal lap time, calculated by adding their best sector times. It is very clear that Oscar Piastri would have dominated qualifying.
He could have beaten Charles Leclerc’s number 16 by at least six tenths of a second. Meanwhile, British driver Lando Norris would have been two tenths behind. Moreover, Leclerc could also have finished behind George Russell and Lance Stroll, who like the McLaren drivers, failed to put together a perfect lap when it mattered. As Charles himself said, “Today, we were the only ones to put together a good lap.”
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