Charles Leclerc has conveyed hope that the “unique” profile of the Monaco Grand Prix circuit can help Ferrari spring a positive result to boost an underwhelming 2025 Formula 1 season.
The Monegasque arrives in his homeland fifth in the Drivers’ standings, with a third-place finish in Jeddah his best result of the current campaign so far.
Ferrari’s SF-25 car has been poor on tracks with predominantly slow-speed corners this year, which has seen the Scuderia generally struggle for results.
Its predecessor, the SF-24, performed much better on slower circuits, which saw Leclerc through to claim his first win on home soil last year.
When asked if Monaco’s exclusively slow nature might allow Ferrari to shift focus onto creating a better setup, rather than having to create a balance which mitigates between the car’s strengths and weaknesses, Leclerc affirmed this may hopefully help the team find something positive.
“The answer will have it on track tomorrow,” he told media, including Motorsport Week. “We don’t really know yet what to expect but it is true that there’s only those big gaps so obviously we’ll try and focus and put the car in the best place possible for those big corners which normally on all the cars you’re just trying to kind of compromise between the high speeds and the low speeds but here it’s all about the low speed and I hope that will give us something new about our car that we haven’t seen yet.”
Qualifying and Q3 ‘most important part’ of Monaco weekend
Whilst Leclerc admitted that “on paper it [Monaco] doesn’t look like the most amazing track for us,” he acknowledged that ensuring the car is fast enough to make it through until the final part of qualifying is hugely crucial to how successful his race can be.
“But, in Monaco, it’s also so unique and so different than anything we’ve raced on over the season,” he said. “But, we can have a bit of a surprise once we put the car down on tomorrow. I hope it will happen. And, if it doesn’t, I hope to be there on Saturday. Which, in my time, will remain the most important part of the weekend. But, on paper, it’s going to stay that way.”
Leclerc later said that provided he can make it into Q3, there is always hope of “doing something magic, because you don’t know where you stand at,” adding: “OK, you have some ideas initial ideas of where you are going to be fighting for in qualifying but until you get that lap in Q3 and everybody goes back out you don’t really know where you stand.”
READ MORE – Why Ferrari is braced for ‘very difficult’ F1 Monaco GP
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