Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc seem to be, finally, in a position to challenge Mercedes for a 2026 race win. Scuderia Ferrari's rivals on the Formula 1 grid expected Maranello to be competitive at the Monaco Grand Prix this weekend, mainly due to a combination of the SF-26’s good form in slow corners and the absence of long straights—an area when the car has been lacking this year.
The theory was backed up by reality on Friday, with Charles Leclerc leading Lewis Hamilton in FP1. The positions were then reversed, as Hamilton was quickest in the second practice and top overall on the day. It was a statement of intent by the team, with the program running to plan and no unforeseen issues getting in the way on a track made even busier than past years by the presence of 11th team Cadillac and its two cars.
View Price on AmazonThe gap to the opposition was much smaller in the second session—Max Verstappen led the pursuit in both—but afterwards, team principal Fred Vasseur was pleased with what he’d seen. “In Monaco, the challenge is always to anticipate the next session, the evolution of the grip for the drivers and for the team,” said the Frenchman. “And you have always to adjust a little bit everything. Now I think the second session was not bad, it’s just that it was difficult to put a lap together for everybody.
We have to keep in mind that it was mega challenging [with] the traffic [in] Monaco; and now with ten percent more cars on track, it's more than ten percent more difficult.” Intriguingly, Vasseur also suggested that, after all the talk about power units and energy management in recent months, the focus has moved back to the familiar story of tires and how best to prepare them for a quick lap.
“Now [that] we have a kind of convergence of understanding of the car, tires are becoming again predominant into the performance,” he said. “And with so many cars on track, it's difficult to do a proper out-lap. Sometimes you are pushing, and you have to slow down, and so on. I think it will be the key for [qualifying] to be able to do a proper out-lap to arrive in the right window, and to do a clean lap later on. It will be a challenge. And I was not expecting that it will be an easy life…”
“You have a kind-of convergence of performance over the session," he added. "You can't expect to be four-tenths faster than everybody all the weekend. It means that we have to make some steps, perhaps in the approach of the grip and the evaluation of the grip for the next session. Anticipation will be the key for tomorrow.”
Within the Ferrari camp, a fascinating dynamic has developed. On the one hand is Leclerc, the local hero for whom this race means so much, and who finally won it in 2024 after so much frustration. He also comes into this weekend having earlier this week extended what was already a long contract with the Scuderia, with both parties reaffirming their faith in each other.
Then there is Hamilton, who struggled through a difficult first year at Ferrari in 2025 but has now hit the sweet spot, and is so much happier with life than he was last season. The two drivers were pretty evenly matched over the day, split by 0.226 seconds in FP1 and 0.111 seconds in FP2. To be fair to Leclerc, he was far from happy due to a brake issue—and a lack of faith in your brakes is not what you want in Monaco.
"Unfortunately, it's been two weekends that I'm facing some issues on the brakes, and I'm just struggling on my side with the brakes at the moment,” Leclerc said. “So, we are trying to find a solution. We haven't found, so far, a solution. We'll keep working on that, and try to make sure that for tomorrow we do a step forward on that. In FP2, I just lost a little bit of confidence for that, but we are working on that.”
Leclerc’s struggles shouldn’t detract from a great performance from Hamilton at a track where confidence and experience count for so much. Nevertheless, he sounded cautious at the end of Friday. “It’s been a positive day overall, and the car felt good, but we still have a lot of work to do to get the car where we want it to be," Hamilton said.
Source: roadandtrack.com
