Leclerc: Radio issues prompted emotional tone in Hungarian F1 race

Leclerc eventually finished the race in seventh after he was delayed by a wheelgun issue at a pit stop and received a five-second penalty for pitlane speeding, the latter costing him a place to George Russell after the flag.

The Monegasque was also heard during the race questioning the timing of a strategy call, but he downplayed the emotion that appeared to be attached to the message.

“The problem is that we have also lots of problems with the radio," he said. "And one out of four words is not understood by my engineer, because there's just problems with our radios in three, four races.

”So we need to fix that. And obviously my tone of voice is quite high because I need to make myself heard.

“But I just wanted to make sure that they didn't understand me wrong, and that I want you to go aggressive early, and not aggressive late. So it was just about clarifying because of our radio issues.”

He added: "It's difficult. Some races we didn't do exactly what I wanted to do, but today we did. And just the slow stop obviously put us quite a bit on the back foot.”

Leclerc admitted that it had been a “difficult” and “frustrating” afternoon at the Hungaroring as his run of disappointing races continued, but stressed “the result looks worse than what it actually is”.

"I mean, the pitstop was quite slow,” he said. “And we had a five-second penalty for speeding in the pit lane. So yeah, it's again a weekend that is difficult.

Charles Leclerc, Scuderia Ferrari

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

“Honestly, it's frustrating overall, because I felt that with the pace we had today, even as a driver, when you are feeling like you're doing a good job with a car you have, nobody really notices it.

“And whenever you are doing a bad job, everybody notices it. So it's difficult.

“But at the end, it's part of the game. And it's just up to us now to do a step forward as McLaren did.

“Now, we are in the back foot. And it's been confirmed since the last three weekends, so there's a lot of work to do again.

“Honestly, today, I feel like the result is much worse than what it felt like. The first stint felt pretty good, then with the slow stop, it really put us on the back foot being behind Lance [Stroll].

“I had to push a lot, then we were with Carlos [Sainz], and we lost a bit of time there. And then in the third stint, I pushed again and there again, the car felt quite okay.

“But it's clear that compared to Lando [Norris] especially we are still behind.”

Leclerc added that there was no repeat of the tyre degradation that was a weakness earlier in the season.

“Considering how much we were pushing, I don't think it was that bad,” he said.

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari SF-23

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

“But I don't want to comment too much on that. Because to be honest, in the car, you've only got your own picture.

“I could see that with Lewis [Hamilton] in front in the first stint, I felt like we were doing a really good job on tyre management. Third stint with Oscar [Piastri], it felt like I was doing a good job with tyre management. 

“But I don't know what the other three guys in the front were doing. So I'll have to check that.”