“You pay the price with the results but gain a lot of knowledge”: Charles Leclerc discusses Ferrari’s recent slump in form

Charles Leclerc believes that Ferrari’s rate of developing the car was good until the Monaco GP and has been hampered by several issues after Barcelona. Speaking to media including Sportskeeda in Budapest, the Monegasque driver reckoned that updates on the car during the Spanish GP had induced bouncing, leading him to try extreme setups on his car.

Ferrari have been unable to maximize their points finishes in the European triple header of races that concluded in Silverstone. After the race, Charles Leclerc had asserted the urgency to have cleaner weekends and lose fewer points to their rivals. With their second position in the constructors championship under threat from McLaren, they have been in a race against time to sort out their performance woes.

Leclerc said that he felt the rate of development of Ferrari was satisfactory until Monaco. However, he suggested that the upgrade in Barcelona had induced bouncing issues with their car. He claimed that the bouncing led him to go extreme with set-up changes to his car to understand the issues. However, the 25-year-old does expect an improvement in the next few races and for the team to return to their early season form. Ferrari has brought a minor upgrade featuring a reworked underfloor to the Hungarian GP.

Asked by Sportskeeda if he was satisfied with the rate of development at Ferrari this season and what he expected from races ahead, Leclerc replied:

“I think our rate of improvement until Monaco was really good, as I said many times before that. We were probably one of the teams that made progress, back from Monza last year to Monaco this year, was a really good rate of improvement. Then went to Montreal, where we had some issues with the power unit in the race which obviously cost us a good result. Then after, the turning point was Barcelona onwards, where we obviously had an upgrade that induced quite a lot of bouncing.”

“On my side, especially that moment onwards, I have been quite extreme in the change of setup in order to try and find a way around those issues, which you pay the price with the results. However you gain a lot of knowledge about those issues, which will help us bounce back from this weekend onwards. For us it is important to lose as little races as possible, to be able to understand those issues. But now we understand those issues and I am confident that it will be better from this rate onwards in order to maximise the points here and in Spa as well, and obviously for the rest of the season.”

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Charles Leclerc explains new upgrades and expectations from the races ahead

Charles Leclerc shared that he feels it is difficult to predict what position Ferrari will bounce back to after the upgrade on their car. However, he felt they needed a clean weekend and a better understanding of their issues to optimize the car's performance. The six-time race winner suggested that the new upgrade of a reworked floor is to contain the bouncing issues on their car. He said that their current issues were not similar to the ones in 2023, where the car was peaky.

Asked where in the pecking order they expected to bounce back to, Leclerc responded:

“I think it’s a very difficult question to answer because from one weekend to the other, when you look at the top 2 to 3 teams, its always a matter of a tenth or two maximum. To be precise in where exactly we are going to be is very difficult. But year we’ll target the highest possible and if we optimise everything, there is no reason why we wouldn’t come back to level of performance we have seen at the beginning of the year, so that is the target. But I think the main important point is to just have a clean weekend and not going too extreme with the setup, just in order for me to understand and know what the car is going to be like when I am taking a corner in qualifying. And if we have that we will be capable to challenge back in the front.”

Asked if the problems on the car were the peakiness like last year or the bouncing, Leclerc explained:

“The new part is mostly for the bouncing, it’s not for the peakiness. The peakiness was never a part of the problem. Obviously you have more peakiness when you are on bouncing because you are jumping everywhere. But the problem is not the peakiness, its just the bouncing.”

Ferrari has not introduced significant major upgrades despite Leclerc being not fully satisfied with their recent developments on the car. In comparison to McLaren, the team brought a tenth of a second worth of an upgrade every time they developed their car. Their Woking rival instead had a couple of tenths in hand every time they upgraded their car, with the best rate of development on the grid. As it stands, Ferrari is currently second in the standings with a total of 302 points and is trailed by McLaren who have a total of 295 points. Red Bull currently has a 71-point lead but there are 12 more races on the calendar for Ferrari to catch up and make a difference.