Leclerc · QUICK TAKE
Leclerc says bet on Ferrari at Monaco, but the case has caveats
Rivals are calling it too, but new MGU-K rules and Leclerc's own Monaco history complicate the favourite tag.
Charles Leclerc arrived at the Canadian Grand Prix carrying the weight of a difficult weekend and still found time to look ahead to Monaco with optimism. “If there’s one race this year where I feel we could have more of a shot at pole,” he said, “it would be Monaco.” That kind of measured confidence, from a driver who had just called Mercedes “a very, very good team” and “a very all-round team”, carries more weight than a generic home-race rally.
What makes the claim interesting is that his rivals are saying the same thing. Lando Norris told reporters Ferrari’s low-speed performance is “far better” than the opposition’s. McLaren principal Andrea Stella called Ferrari “probably the favourite”. Kimi Antonelli, who leads the championship and has every reason to downplay the competition, pointed to Ferrari’s engine package as the key ingredient. When the field’s best drivers and bosses converge on the same forecast, it is worth examining whether the foundations hold.
The core technical argument goes like this. Ferrari runs a smaller turbo than its rivals. On a conventional circuit, a small turbo means more lag off a corner, and rivals compensate by deploying MGU-K energy early to fill the combustion gap, draining their batteries. Ferrari’s corner-exit approach is more organic, which matters less on energy-poor circuits but should shine somewhere like Monaco where charging opportunities are plentiful and consecutive power straights are absent. Add a chassis widely regarded as better than Mercedes in slow-speed corners and on kerbs, and the circuit profile points the same way.
The counter-argument is technical too, and it comes from the rules. New restrictions on MGU-K deployment relative to car speed will be in force this weekend, meaning the electric motor runs at maximum capacity for less of each lap than in earlier rounds. According to The Race, the effect is that engine compromises are reduced for everyone at Monaco: rivals will no longer be penalised as heavily for burning battery energy to compensate for turbo lag, because the circuit simply will not ask them to deploy as aggressively in the first place. The advantage Ferrari was supposed to hold may be real, but it is partially eroded before the lights go out.
Stella, who gave Ferrari the favourite label, also noted that McLaren’s lower gear ratios compared to the works Mercedes team could provide extra punch off corners. And he was careful to observe that medium-speed corners remain relevant around the barriers: Casino is above 150km/h, Tabac sits around 170-180km/h, and the Swimming Pool complex clears 200km/h, according to The Race. Those corners do not belong to the same conversation as the Loews Hairpin, and they happen to be where Mercedes has been competitive this season.
None of this makes Ferrari’s Monaco case weak. It makes it conditional.
Leclerc’s own record at this circuit is the other conditional. The 2024 win was clean: pole to flag, 25 points, exactly the performance the favourite tag demands. But look further back and the story is messier. In 2022 he qualified on pole and finished 4th after a strategic misfire. In 2021 he started from pole and retired with a driveshaft failure before scoring a single point. Two Monaco poles, two results that returned nothing like their potential.
“We need to be careful. Mercedes is a very, very good team. I think it’s a very strong team and a very all-round team, whether it’s in corners or in the straight.”
That context matters for a circuit where the gap between what you qualify and what you finish is wider than almost anywhere else on the calendar. Since 2021, Leclerc has started from the front row in Monaco three times. He has won once from those starts. The 2025 race saw him start 2nd and finish 2nd behind Norris, a composed drive but not a winning one.
Lewis Hamilton, meanwhile, arrives from Canada in better spirits than he has managed for most of his early Ferrari tenure. If the car genuinely suits Monaco, the question of which Ferrari driver extracts more from it becomes a real one for the first time this season.
The honest framing is this: Ferrari’s Monaco case is credible and broadly supported, but credible is not the same as certain. The technical edge is real on kerbs and low-speed exits. The MGU-K restriction softens how punishing the circuit will be for rivals who usually over-deploy. And Leclerc’s relationship with Monaco is not the clean narrative that a single win from pole implies, even if last year’s runner-up finish suggests the volatile early seasons are receding.
Watch qualifying. If Ferrari puts both cars in the top three on Saturday, the conversation about favouritism will look well-founded. If Mercedes or McLaren splits them, the caveats written here will matter more than the consensus.
Ferrari is a legitimate Monaco favourite, but the edge is narrower than the noise suggests, and Leclerc still has a conversion problem to solve.