Hamilton and Leclerc slide out of contention as Ferrari's tyre woes wreck Austrian GP

Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc dropped out of podium contention at the Austrian Grand Prix on Sunday, undone by severe rear tyre degradation that left Ferrari scrambling for answers in the heat at the Red Bull Ring. Hamilton eventually finished outside the top four, while Leclerc slid from second on the road to a distant eighth place.

Hamilton had started third and initially looked competitive, passing Leclerc and trading blows with Max Verstappen in the early laps as he attempted to close on race leader George Russell. But the hot conditions exposed a fundamental balance problem on the SF-26, forcing him onto a three-stop strategy he was never able to make pay. After just 13 laps on hard tyres in his second stint, Hamilton used a virtual safety car period to switch to softs, only to face a long final run on hards — a stint that McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, on a two-stop, was able to exploit to move ahead into fourth.

“I was on the attack, obviously I got past Charles and I thought it wasn’t looking too bad in the first few laps,” Hamilton told media after the race. “With George, I was kind of holding on for a second and then the rears just dropped off on every set [of tyres]. For some reason, the balance was very difficult. We just couldn’t keep up with everyone today.”

Leclerc’s afternoon was even more difficult. The Monégasque driver, who had qualified strongly the day before, found himself with almost no rear grip once the race began, making the car’s handling near-impossible to manage over a full stint. The contrast between his Saturday and Sunday pace left him openly questioning Ferrari’s set-up direction.

“It was just an incredibly difficult race,” Leclerc said. “Very, very low grip overall. Just struggled to have the car and the tyres in the right window, especially the rears — just missing a lot of rear grip. Yesterday, I was quite happy with the car. But it wasn’t in the right direction today.”

Leclerc acknowledged that the Austria result is part of a broader pattern of inconsistency with the SF-26. “I’ve been working very hard in the past weeks because there was always one reason or another that made me struggle on the Sunday or on the Saturday,” he said. “That probably means that I don’t really have a clear picture of what I want from this car. I’ve got to find that.”

He added that the car’s front-end had actually felt strong in the race, making the rear’s sudden loss of grip all the more puzzling. “The front-end stayed strong, but the rear had no [grip]. So, it’s a balance that you’ve got to find that on this car is particularly difficult.”

The result leaves Ferrari with pressing questions about their race-day tyre management ahead of the next round, with both drivers unable to explain the gap between their qualifying and race performance.