Frederic Vasseur Slams Ferrari’s Poor Hungarian GP Execution

Frederic Vasseur criticised Ferrari’s execution in the 2026 Hungarian Grand Prix after a series of mistakes left the team with only fourth and fifth place.

Ferrari had previously shown strong form on Friday, when Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc each topped a practice session and secured a comfortable one-two at the end of the day. The technical layout of the Hungaroring appeared to suit the SF-26 chassis, with less emphasis on power unit performance than at Silverstone and Spa-Francorchamps.

That advantage began to fade when Lando Norris claimed pole position by just 0.012 seconds over Hamilton. A three-place grid penalty then dropped the British driver further down the order, while Oscar Piastri’s fast start allowed McLaren to control the race from the front.

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Ferrari’s problems continued throughout the 70-lap contest. Hamilton surrendered track position to Max Verstappen despite completing a successful undercut during the first round of pit stops, before further strategic errors restricted the progress of both cars.

Hamilton was eventually demoted to fifth after receiving a five-second penalty for speeding in the pit lane, while Leclerc finished fourth. The result fell well short of Ferrari’s expectations after its dominant practice performance earlier in the weekend.

“It’s difficult to fully understand the pace because I think clean air is key,” Vasseur said. “Firstly, it’s not a good Sunday, because when you are one-two on Friday, you expect much more than P4 and P5.”

“On top of that, we made too many mistakes, starting from the start, with the penalty, with the fact that Max overtook us on track, and every time we made a pit stop, we lost a position by 0.2 or 0.3 seconds,” the Ferrari team principal added.

The sequence of errors made it difficult for Ferrari to establish the SF-26’s true race potential. The team must now improve its starts, strategy and pit-stop execution to convert its underlying pace into a stronger result at the next round.