Why Ferrari are being tipped as Monaco Grand Prix favourites by F1 rivals as Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc eye glory | F1 News

Mercedes head into this weekend’s showpiece Monaco Grand Prix aiming to extend their winning run at the start of F1’s new era to six races, but could the sport’s most-famous event provide the first significant shift in 2026’s early narrative?

The winner of the last four of those races, Kimi Antonelli, certainly does not believe the championship leaders will start as favourites in the principality.

“I think Ferrari are going to be the team to beat in Monaco,” Antonelli told Sky Sports F1 after his win last time out in Montreal.

On a run of 33 races without a grand prix victory, and with only two Monaco wins to show for the last 24 years, what could actually make the Scuderia and their SF-26 car the combination to beat at the legendary street circuit this time around?

Why Ferrari are being tipped as Monaco favourites

Antonelli’s feeling that Ferrari will prove most suited to the unique challenge of Monaco is based on what has emerged a standout trait of the Italian team’s car so far this season – performance in slow-speed corners, of which there are an abundance in the principality.

“It’s going to be very interesting how we do there but, for sure, Ferrari is the favourite,” added Antonelli.

“Also with that winglet they have on the back [of the car] it’s giving them a lot of downforce at low speed.”

It is a view shared at last year’s race winners McLaren.

World champion Lando Norris, who claimed McLaren’s first Monaco win for 17 years in 2026, predicted: “Honestly, I think the Ferrari will be on pole in Monaco.

“Their low-speed performance is far better than everyone else.”

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella, while not discounting his own team’s chances of repeating their pole-victory double from 12 months ago, on a track that should also suit their own 2026 car as well as, inevitably, Mercedes’, said: “When we look at the overlay based on the GPS speed, we can see that Ferrari is definitely a competitive chassis in the corners.

“The first sector in Canada, they were always very competitive. It’s not only a low-speed sector, but it’s also a sector with kerbing. Normally these features, they tend to be rewarded in a track like Monaco.

“In addition to that, we see, for instance in Canada, the Ferrari lost time in the straights, but you don’t have much of that in Monaco.

“I think Lando is pretty right in seeing Ferrari is possibly the favourite car for a pole position in Monaco.”

Not that pole positions, it should be noted, have been easy to come by for Ferrari anywhere recently.

Leclerc’s pole last year in Hungary (a relatively slow-speed venue itself) is their only one since the Mexico City Grand Prix in October 2024, which was also the scene of their most recent race victory.

But could Monaco finally bring the ‘Prancing Horse’ back to the very front of the grid after a largely encouraging start to 2026 despite an apparent power disadvantage on more conventional tracks?

Speaking on The F1 Show podcast, Sky Sports F1 commentator David Croft said: “I think this is Ferrari’s Monaco this year. The lack of power won’t be so apparent there.

“They were mega in the slow corners in Montreal… I think this could be a Ferrari dominance.

“It’ll all be about qualifying as it always is in Monaco. If Charles can get on pole, Lewis can get on pole, if they can get on the front row, this is Ferrari’s weekend to lose.”

Will Hamilton’s Montreal form transfer to Monaco?

If Ferrari do prove to be the team to beat, then the battle to be ahead between Monaco’s own Charles Leclerc and a rejuvenated Lewis Hamilton should be fascinating to watch.

Hamilton certainly heads to Monaco in high spirts on the back of the best result of his Ferrari career so far with a second place to Antonelli in Canada.

It marked the 41-year-old’s second podium finish in the first five races, after none in his debut campaign in red, and moved him within three points of Leclerc in the Drivers’ Championship after the Monegasque endured what he described as his “most difficult weekend” in F1 en route to a flattering fourth-placed finish.

So what of Monaco then for Hamilton, a track that has not always proved the seven-time world champion’s most fruitful – particularly recently.

Of Hamilton’s record 105 wins in F1, three have come in the principality in 18 visits.

That is still a commendable record by most yardsticks and a tally which puts him in the top eight for most victories by a driver in the illustrious event’s history. But judged against the rarefied standards of Hamilton’s record-breaking career, Monaco is just his joint-14th most successful track for race wins and joint-16th most successful for poles.

Since the most recent of his three Monaco wins – from one of only two principality pole positions – in 2019, Hamilton’s finishing record there reads seventh, eighth, fourth, seventh and fifth.

But the Briton left Montreal feeling optimistic about both his own form and the prospects for Ferrari’s SF-26 car around the sinuous streets.

“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,” said Hamilton.

“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 One.

“And, yeah, if you take away the power deficit, we’re in the fight with these guys.”

But will Hamilton be able to beat Monaco expert Leclerc?

Despite his team-mate’s struggles at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, outpacing Leclerc in Monaco will still likely prove no mean feat for Hamilton whatever Ferrari’s competitiveness relative to Mercedes and the rest.

As, if Montreal is one of Leclerc’s weakest tracks, Monaco is arguably his very best.

The home favourite has finished in the top three in qualifying in each of the past five attempts (although dropped from third to sixth on the 2023 grid due to a penalty) in a run headlined by pole positions in 2021, 2022 and 2024 plus a further front-row start next to a pole-sitting Norris last year.

Furthermore, Leclerc has only once been outqualified by a team-mate in seven home-race appearances. That came in unfortunate circumstances in 2019 in his first year driving for Ferrari when, having topped final practice, he was knocked out in Q1 after a tactical blunder from the team.

He has still only won his home race once in emotional scenes in 2024 after a masterful weekend, although he could have won twice more had his car not suffered a technical failure before the start of 2021 and then Ferrari not messed up his strategy in a wet-dry race a year later.

So if Leclerc is going to be back on top form anywhere, it is likely to be around the streets of Monaco, making this weekend a good litmus test of the balance of power between the team-mates at Ferrari this season.

Hamilton qualified 0.3s behind Leclerc last year and so any improvement on that in a like-for-like comparison will underline the progress the Briton has made into 2026 with team and car.

With Hamilton chasing his first grand prix win since July 2024 when still a Mercedes driver, and Leclerc aiming for his first triumph since October 2024, Ferrari will hope their car lives up to its slow-corner billing when they will bid to snap Mercedes’ unbeaten start to 2026.

Next up is the start of Formula 1’s European summer swing, with the Monaco Grand Prix the first of six races in eight weeks. Watch live on Sky Sports F1 from Friday. Stream Sky Sports with NOW – no contract, cancel anytime