Leclerc left searching for answers after Hungary Qualifying as he admits pace ‘was never at Hamilton’s level’

Charles Leclerc has admitted that his pace “was never to the level” of Ferrari team mate Lewis Hamilton across Saturday’s Qualifying session for the Hungarian Grand Prix, with the Monegasque left to rue deficits in two key corners.

Leclerc, who claimed pole at the Hungaroring in 2025, posted a fastest time of 1m 17.445s during the decisive Q3 phase, comparing to a 1m 17.219s from Hamilton and a 1m 17.207s from pole-sitting McLaren driver Lando Norris.

Sharing his emotions after the session, Leclerc sighed: “I’m a bit disappointed. Disappointed mostly because I didn’t find a solution for Turn 1 and Turn 12 all today, really.

“In FP3 already I was struggling with Turn 1 and Turn 12, and I was still losing three-tenths or something like this in Q3 in Turn 1 and Turn 12. I’m a bit disappointed with it. I’ll look into it to try and fix that for tomorrow.”

He added: “Today there was quite a bit of a wind change, and I don’t think I did a great job anticipating it with the car set-up. I felt a little bit off from this morning, then Qualifying has been quite messy, to be honest.

“We’ve been a bit unlucky in Q2 with the yellow flag in the last sector, then we were kind of trying to… We were playing catch-up. But the pace was never to the level of Lewis, so it was all about trying to maximise today. I felt I kind of did it.”

Turning his attention to Sunday’s Grand Prix – which he will nonetheless start ahead of Hamilton, who was given a three-place grid penalty post-Qualifying for impeding Oscar Piastri – Leclerc pointed to the importance of nailing the long run down to Turn 1, with overtaking opportunities at a premium around the tight, twisty Budapest venue.

“We were competitive all weekend,” he commented. “It’s true that today everybody seems to have done a big, big step forward that we didn’t do, but it’s still a long race tomorrow.

“I do believe that our race pace is strong, but it’s true again that people have done a step forward since yesterday, so I’m pretty sure it’s going to be very close. On a track like this, the start particularly will be very key.”