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November 14, 2025
The F1 Stewards handed Charles Leclerc penalty for ‘erratic’ driving during Formula 1‘s Hungarian Grand Prix but it seems more sinister Ferrari issues caused the catastrophic dip in performance.
The weekend began with high hopes for Leclerc and Ferrari who managed to seize pole position in Budapest, narrowly edging out the rapidly advancing McLaren drivers and finally placing themselves in prime position to challenge for a rare victory in an otherwise Team Papaya-dominated season.
Yet as the chequered flag fell and the dust settled, the main headlines focused not on Ferrari’s fleeting renaissance but on the penalties that saw Charles Leclerc embroiled in yet another controversy with F1’s stewards.
Fresh off an exceptional qualifying lap that secured him pole, the Monegasque driver looked steady and calm during the race’s opening laps, holding off intense pressure from McLaren’s Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris.
Controlling the first stint with apparent ease, Ferrari appeared to have crafted a strategy and set-up finally capable of matching F1’s dominant teams in both qualifying and race trim.
However, trouble began to unravel after Leclerc’s second pitstop as Ferrari’s pace dipped dramatically, with the driver furiously describing his car as “undriveable” as he slipped down the order and saw podium hopes evaporate lap-by-lap.
“This is so incredibly frustrating,” a furious Leclerc lamented over team radio. “We have lost all competitiveness.
“You just had to listen to me. I would have found a different way of managing these issues. Now it’s just undriveable. Undriveable. It will be a miracle if we finish on the podium.”
It was in this tense, high-stakes environment that Leclerc found himself embroiled in one of the most contentious incidents of the race, setting the stage for the penalties that would come to define his Hungarian Grand Prix.
With little more than 10 laps to go, Leclerc was caught and pressured by Mercedes’ George Russell who was significantly faster in the closing stages.
Russell attempted to overtake Leclerc for third place on the main straight leading into Turn 1 and Leclerc, desperate to defend his position, executed a series of defensive maneuvers—first edging his car towards Russell’s path on the straight, then making a second, sharper move under braking.
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2025 F1 Hungarian Grand Prix Race Results
While the Mercedes ultimately overtook the Ferrari to claim a podium, the stewards wasted little time in reviewing both incidents after the race and determined the aggressive nature of Leclerc’s defense is “erratic driving.”
As a result, Leclerc was handed a five-second time penalty for his actions, as well as a penalty point on his FIA super-license—the first he had received in over a year.
Fortunately the severe penalty did not change his fourth-place finish due to a substantial gap to the next car, but the ramifications extended well beyond the final classification.
Yet, it would be a mistake to view Charles Leclerc penalty at the 2025 F1 Hungarian GP purely through the lens of driving standards or driver rivalry.
Leclerc believed his precipitous fall from leading the race to barely clinging on for fourth was down to a “chassis issue”—a mechanical problem that made the car unpredictable.
“From around Lap 40 we had a problem with the chassis, so now I’ve had more details about it,” said Leclerc. “In the car obviously I had no idea what was going on. I mean I had an idea, but it was a wrong idea because I thought it was something that was in our control.
“Unfortunately we had an issue on the chassis, so I don’t have much to add on that. It’s just extremely frustrating when you are fighting for a win and when we had the pace that we had at the beginning of the race, and we lose absolutely everything later on, it’s very frustrating.”
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