F1 News
Ferrari 'wrongly reacted to Verstappen's pitstop' during Hungarian GP
Charles Leclerc did the hard work and overtook pole-sitter George Russell and at one point seemed the favourite to win the Hungarian Grand Prix. But it all started to unravel when Ferrari bizarrely placed Leclerc on the hard tyres.
Hard tyres
The hard tyres hadn't received good reviews all weekend. And conditions during the race wouldn't have improved things. The Ferrari car couldn't get them into the working zone and the man from Monaco moved backwards through the field to finish sixth. Ferrari made the decision after Red Bull Racing pulled Max Verstappen into the pits. The undercut was powerful, but did it need covering off?
"What they were doing was reacting to Verstappen's pit stop. They put him on the hard tyre that clearly wasn't working. I want to know why they felt the need to react. Mercedes extended Hamilton's stint and then he stayed out and put him on the softs to attack. Ferrari did that with Sainz. They should've extended the stint," Chandhok said on Sky Sports.
Charles did the hard work, he got ahead of George and was leading the Grand Prix. He has gone from there to sixth. We saw with Lewis, that overtaking was possible. If they had a 12-lap offset and put him on softs, he would've come back at Max and possibly overtook him," Chandhok added.
The result means that Max Verstappen now has an 80-point lead in the World Championship. A lead that means the Dutchman can record three DNFs and still lead the standings.