Ferrari rear suspension upgrade failure could be responsible for drop in Charles Leclerc's performance: Reports

Charles Leclerc experienced a drop in performance during the 2025 Hungarian GP. The Ferrari driver, who started the race from pole, ended in P4 after his SF-25's rear suspension upgrade reportedly failed.

For the first time since the 2025 Chinese GP, Ferrari had a moment to celebrate as Leclerc denied Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris the pole. However, on Sunday, their struggle returned as Leclerc experienced a drop in performance.

In Belgium, Ferrari updated the car's rear suspension to improve the handling. Although it did the work, the upgrade turned out to be an issue on a particular ride height.

According to a report by Corriere Della Sera, the car became undrivable during the race, limiting the SF-25's performance. As a result, Leclerc was unsettled and lost nearly two seconds per lap at the Hungaroring race.

Ultimately, Leclerc crossed the finish line in P4, 42.5 seconds after the race winner, Lando Norris, followed by Oscar Piastri and George Russell. Leclerc's teammate, Lewis Hamilton, on the other hand, started his race from P12 and came home in the same position.

In a nutshell, the Scuderia Ferrari had a race weekend to forget. Plagued by Hamilton's underwhelming performance and Leclerc's technical issues, Fred Vasseur's team will need to improve its performance to keep its place in the Constructors' championship.

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Charles Leclerc let his feelings be known after a tough Hungarian GP

Charles Leclerc of Monaco drives the F1 race car No. 16. Source: Getty

Following the Hungarian GP, Charles Leclerc shared his thoughts after the #16 driver faced a technical difficulty. Speaking about his race in the post-race interview, the Ferrari driver said, via F1's official website:

"Unfortunately we had an issue on the chassis, so I don’t have much to add on that. It’s just extremely frustrating when you are fighting for a win and when we had the pace that we had at the beginning of the race, and we lose absolutely everything later on, it’s very frustrating.

"Very disappointed. I don’t take any positives from this weekend when we ended the weekend like that. When we have one opportunity in a year to win a race, we need to take it and today we didn’t. Now we will analyse what are the reasons why we had this problem. I don’t think it’s anything that we had in our control, but we’ll check."

Charles Leclerc is in P5 in the driver's standings with 151 points after 14 races and three Sprints. Compared to him, his teammate, Lewis Hamilton, is in P6 with 109 points. Ferrari is in P2 in the Constructors' championship with 260 points.