{"id":48556,"date":"2025-08-06T19:18:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T19:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/48556\/"},"modified":"2025-08-06T19:18:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T19:18:09","slug":"jolyon-palmer-suddenly-saw-something-in-charles-leclercs-data-that-could-explain-his-hungarian-grand-prix-decline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/48556\/","title":{"rendered":"Jolyon Palmer ‘suddenly’ saw something in Charles Leclerc’s data that could explain his Hungarian Grand Prix decline"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Charles Leclerc suffered a dramatic drop-off in performance during the Hungarian Grand Prix, despite leading for most of the 70-lap race. <\/p>\n

The Ferrari driver took a shock pole on the Saturday, beating McLaren\u2019s Oscar Piastri<\/a> by 0.026s. A bemused Leclerc<\/a> didn\u2019t have an explanation for the pole, but it appeared the change in track conditions suited them towards the end of the session. <\/p>\n

In the race it looked like Ferrari had the speed to hold off Piastri, and while Leclerc did so for 40 laps of the Hungaroring, his pace would drop off dramatically in the final stint. <\/p>\n

Leclerc voiced his frustration over team radio and told them his car became \u201cundrivable,\u201d prompting speculation over what Ferrari was trying to manage. The Monegasque dropped out of podium contention when he was overtaken by George Russell<\/a>, and would later claim Ferrari was managing an issue with his chassis. <\/p>\n

Analysing what happened to Leclerc on F1 TV<\/a>, former driver Jolyon Palmer<\/a> uncovered one key piece of data that might explain Leclerc\u2019s drop-off in performance. <\/p>\n

\"CharlesPhoto by James Sutton \u2013 Formula 1\/Formula 1 via Getty ImagesJolyon Palmer uncovers key data that explains Charles Leclerc\u2019s Hungarian GP decline<\/p>\n

Leclerc\u2019s lap times dropped by nearly three seconds per-lap compared to the leaders, showing the team was clearly managing some sort of issue in his car. <\/p>\n

Palmer notes two key points on the track where Leclerc was losing the most time, having effectively started to lift and coast. <\/p>\n

\u201cLeclerc has no more acceleration towards the end of the straight. He\u2019s not even picking eighth gear here, and it\u2019s the same up towards Turn 4. After having a really quick car on the straights in qualifying, suddenly he does not have (battery) deployment,\u201d said Palmer. <\/p>\n

\u201cCharles is fighting the rear of the car. It could be that Ferrari cranked on a load of front wing, but they don\u2019t believe they did. So then it could be that he picked up damage at this part of the race, and that\u2019s why he\u2019s missing a load of downforce. But I do believe it may well be the tyre pressures.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jolyon Palmer agrees with George Russell theory on Charles Leclerc<\/p>\n

Russell suspected that Ferrari reduced the tyre pressures<\/a> in Leclerc\u2019s car at the end of the race in a bid to reduce plank wear. Palmer believes this is the most logical explanation, given the limited number of things you can change on the car during a pit stop. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe only thing you can change in a pit stop is the front wing angle or tyre pressures. Normally, you\u2019d never change the tyre pressures to run them as low as possible, because they deflate and you have more of the tyre in contact with the asphalt and more grip,\u201d said Palmer.<\/p>\n

\u201cPirelli mandates that you have to run to a minimum tyre pressure, which you can\u2019t run lower than for safety. No one would go higher because you\u2019d lose grip, but if you did, you\u2019d also raise the ride height of the car. This is what that data looks like. I can see why Mercedes picked up on it, there is probably a bit of damage, but I can see the logic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ferrari have held concerns over plank wear in their cars since their double disqualification at the Chinese Grand Prix. F1 technical expert Gary Anderson disagrees with Russell\u2019s theory<\/a>, believing that Ferrari were nursing damage to the chassis rather than taking a risk in the race. <\/p>\n

However, Leclerc\u2019s angry radio messages would suggest that Ferrari made a change in race that impacted his car, after he specifically referred to managing a chassis problem rather than any specific damage. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Charles Leclerc suffered a dramatic drop-off in performance during the Hungarian Grand Prix, despite leading for most of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,13275,826,32451,17134,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-48556","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-charles-leclerc","11":"tag-ferrari","12":"tag-hungarian-grand-prix","13":"tag-jolyon-palmer","14":"tag-motor","15":"tag-motor-sports","16":"tag-motosport","17":"tag-motosports","18":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}