"Does the team actually hate Charles Leclerc?": Fans react to the driver's disastrous F1 Hungarian GP

Charles Leclerc started on pole position for the Hungarian GP, but the Ferrari driver finished off the podium after a subpar second stint on the hard tires. The Monegasque was called on lap 40 by the Ferrari pit crew, leaving him with an inferior tire delta over his rivals, leading fans to speculate whether the Scuderia sabotages its drivers.

The 27-year-old claimed a stunning pole position Saturday by ruining McLaren's party plans. However, many reckoned that Leclerc would be hounded by the papaya duo come the start of the race.

Despite such concerns, the Ferrari driver had a decent getaway from the five lights and held off Oscar Piastri for the lead of the race. Leclerc then continued to stretch out his lead in the front of the field and was even able to overcome an undercut threat by the Aussie driver.

While he held onto the lead for the first chunk of the race, his second pit stop seemingly spelled disaster for him as Lando Norris had gone onto a one-stop strategy and Piastri overtook him a tire offset. This saw Leclerc plummet down to P3.

This was still not enough for the No. 16 car as he was then overtaken by George Russell for the last spot on the podium, leading Charles Leclerc to finish a dismal fourth. Witnessing Ferrari's strategy with the Monegasque allowing him to lose another race from pole position, fans online questioned the Maranello-based squad's decisions. Reacting to Ferrari's post-race post on X, one user wrote:

"Does the team actually hate Charles [Leclerc]? How has he only had one win from Pole in 16 pole positions in quali. The only thing preventing Ferrari from winning is the team, and strategy." "Leclerc deserves a better team," one fan wrote. "Absolute disaster from Ferrari. They’ve ruined Leclerc’s race yet again. Gutted for him!" another fan wrote.

A host of other fans empathized with Leclerc after a torrid slump down from P1 to P4:

"From pole to P4, no that’s really awful. What level of failure is this?" one netizen wrote. "It’s a total joke I feel pain for Charles," another netizen wrote. "It was not a challenging race, you screwed it up like always, greatness has slip away. And that’s it," a third netizen shared.

Leclerc's first stint had showcased that he had the pace to fend off the papaya duo, until it all went spiraling downwards.

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Charles Leclerc was left frustrated after the Hungarian GP

Charles Leclerc driving the Ferrari SF-25 at the 2025 F1 Grand Prix of Hungary - Source: Getty

Charles Leclerc's 27th pole position ended with him finishing off the podium. This left the Ferrari driver dejected as the chance of scoring a sixth podium this season vanished into thin air with his slower pace on the final stint.

But, his suboptimal pace was not down to him, as the car suffered chassis damage on the 40th lap, bleeding laptime away from the 27-year-old, as Leclerc said:

"Extremely disappointed because the first stint was going quite well. The second was starting to get a bit difficult and from the 40th lap we had a problem with the chassis. There was no hope. I'm just extremely disappointed and extremely frustrated."

Charles Leclerc retains his fifth spot in the drivers' standings and increased his points tally to 151 points after the Hungarian GP.

Edited by Sumeet Kavthale