Former McLaren man predicts Lewis Hamilton to make Charles Leclerc's life difficult at Ferrari

Charles Leclerc and his new teammate Lewis Hamilton form Ferrari's 2025 F1 driver lineup. Midway into the season, with the summer break underway, the Monegasque currently leads Hamilton by over 40 points in the championship. Amid the Briton's recent struggles, former F1 driver Juan Pablo Montoya came out and predicted a harder future for Leclerc.

Lewis Hamilton moved to Ferrari for the 2025 season from Mercedes. It was obvious that the Briton would take some time to embed himself with the team and the culture at Ferrari. However, no one expected the seven-time F1 champion to struggle as much in comparison to Charles Leclerc.

Things got increasingly worse for Hamilton in the last couple of races at the Hungaroring and Spa Francorchamps, where the Briton failed to qualify for Q3 in the qualifying sessions, and also spun around during SQ1 at Spa. The same was caused by the new rear suspension and rear brakes.

Charles Leclerc, on the other hand, finished the 2025 Belgian GP on the podium. Hamilton failed to make Q3 at Hungary, while the Monegasque was able to steal the pole position away from the dominant McLaren. However, the race pace at Budapest was an issue for both drivers.

F1 Grand Prix Of Hungary - Practice Session - Source: Getty

Juan Pablo Montoya came out and detailed how it seems that Charles Leclerc is faster than Lewis Hamilton, but pointed out how the SF25 is inclined towards the Monegasque, and as Ferrari makes the switch towards a car suiting Hamilton, things will get harder for Leclerc. He said,

“What’s really happening is that Lewis is at a point where he wants to beat his team-mate. He’s putting in huge effort. Working very hard, but the car isn’t to his liking. The engineers are starting to understand, but they still don’t fully grasp how difficult this car is to drive.” (via AS Colombia)

“Charles looks very quick because he can handle the car’s behaviour. I think that as Ferrari adjusts the car more to Lewis’s style and he gets comfortable, life will get harder for Charles. So far, it hasn’t been too tough for him, but we’ll see,” he added.

---

Charles Leclerc detailed the issues faced in the Hungarian GP Main Race

Charles Leclerc started the race in pole position and managed to keep the lead on the first lap, before extending it to a couple of seconds, and leading for the first stint. However, Norris' one-stop strategy took the lead away from the Monegasque, who soon started complaining to his team via cryptic messages.

The breaking point came when Oscar Piastri passed Charles Leclerc after the final stop, and the Monegasque let out a massive rant on the team radio about the pace, explaining he won't be able to finish on the podium. After the race, the Ferrari driver was questioned about why his pace suddenly dropped in the final stint. He said,

“Unfortunately we had an issue on the chassis, so I don’t have much to add on that. It’s just extremely frustrating when you are fighting for a win and when we had the pace that we had at the beginning of the race, and we lose absolutely everything later on, it’s very frustrating.”

However, George Russell came out after the race and suggested Ferrari had increased the tire pressure for Leclerc's final stint to prevent plank wear, which led to the drop in pace.