F1 LIVE | The lead-up to the F1 Monaco Grand Prix weekend

The seven-time world champion achieved his best Ferrari result at the Canadian Grand Prix, finishing second behind Kimi Antonelli and ahead of Max Verstappen. Looking ahead, Lewis Hamilton is optimistic due to the characteristics of the Monte Carlo circuit.

He said: "I mean, that’s the one track that power is not king. I think that’s definitely car performance. I think our car could be really strong there. I’m really going to focus on making sure I arrive with the same energy as I had this weekend, really study hard with the engineers to make sure we position the car in the right place from Practice 1.

"And, yeah, if you take away the power deficit, we’re in the fight with these guys. But unfortunately that’s not the way it is today. And I think in the moment I’m like, “I need more power somehow,” because I’m able to hold on or keep up with them through the corners and I can’t push the pedal any further. And you see them just eking out the straight and you catch them back in the brakes, they eke it out in the straight. It’s really hard," the Ferrari driver concluded.

The defending world champion predicts Ferrari to take pole position on Saturday. "Monaco was a track that was decent to us last year. Honestly, I think the Ferrari will be on pole next weekend in Monaco, so their low-speed performance is far better than everyone else.

British talent Oliver Bearman is looking forward to the next weekend as well. While the 2026 regulations has not let the drivers from pushing to the limit so far, the Briton expects Monte Carlo to be an exception.

"Maybe they'll be a bit more fun to drive, that could be nice. No, I mean, I don't think there's really much opportunity to innovate in terms of energy in Monaco, just because the limits with the speed, the reductions with speed, it's very early in Monaco for obvious safety reasons. Yeah, I think it's just going to be a bit more like last year where we can just drive how we want, use the gears that we want, not have to do any silly lift-and-coast and these things. So I'm actually quite looking forward to it, it should be good," he told GPblog, among others.