Why beating Leclerc in Monaco could be Hamilton’s biggest Ferrari statement yet

The seven-time world champion delivered his strongest performance in Ferrari red at the Canadian Grand Prix, finishing second and 34 seconds ahead of Leclerc. While Leclerc eased off in the closing stages, Hamilton looked fully in command, displaying superior rhythm and confidence in the SF-26.

In 2026, Hamilton has closed the gap to Leclerc significantly after a difficult adaptation year in 2025. After failing to finish on the podium in 2025, he already has two in 2026. The qualifying head-to-head stands at 3-2 in Leclerc’s favour, a significant improvement so far from 19-5 last season.

After excelling at perhaps his strongest circuit in Montreal, Hamilton now arrives at a track which is one of Leclerc’s best. The only time Leclerc has finished behind a teammate in Monaco when he has completed the race was in 2022, where a Ferrari strategy error cost him the race victory. He has shown extraordinary single-lap pace on the streets of Monte Carlo with three pole positions and narrowly losing out on top spot to Lando Norris last season.

By contrast, Hamilton has struggled more often that not in recent Monaco weekends, being outperformed by a teammate in four of his last five years, including Valtteri Bottas in 2021, George Russell in 2022 and 2024, and Leclerc in 2025.

Last year’s race was particularly telling: Hamilton was three-tenths slower than Leclerc in qualifying, received a three-place grid penalty, and finished a distant 48 seconds behind his teammate. In that context, Monaco represents a crucial litmus test.

Rob Smedley suggested that Hamilton “got inside Charles’s head” at the Canadian Grand Prix. Felipe Massa's former race engineer said: "He always brings something special. He's always brought something special around Montreal. He was quicker than Charles. That got inside Charles's head because all of a sudden he started to claim that he'd had the worst weekend of his career in Formula 1, stuff like that. So clearly, if Lewis had been three places further back, I wouldn't have thought that Charles would have referred to his weekend as being the worst weekend of his career."

Beating Leclerc in Canada is one thing, but beating his teammate on his home turf would be something else entirely. It could fundamentally shift the internal power balance at Maranello and have an even bigger psychological impact on the Monegasque, at a time when Ferrari are looking to close the gap to Mercedes at the top of the field. Ferrari will fancy Monaco as one of their best chances to stand on the top step of the podium, in a season which has been dominated by Mercedes across the opening five races.

Hamilton has three race victories in Monaco but has not finished on the top step since 2016. His head-to-head record in qualifying against teammates is 7-11, while in races it stands at 10-8. He has been outqualified by Fernando Alonso (2007), Heikki Kovalainen (2009), Jenson Button (2011), Nico Rosberg (2013, 2014 and 2016), Valterri Bottas (2017 and 2021), George Russell (2022 and 2024) and Charles Leclerc last season.

Leclerc on the other hand has a record of 5-2 in qualifying, losing out to Sebastian Vettel in 2019 and Carlos Sainz in 2023. In the race he has a 3-4 deficit after experiencing some poor luck in his early years on his home track. He retired in both the 2018 and 2019 races, failed to make the start in 2021 after crashing in qualifying and a strategic error meant he finished behind Sainz in 2022.