Juan Pablo Montoya says how Lewis Hamilton could complicate Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari stint

Juan Pablo Montoya, speaking to AS Colombia, shared his thoughts on why Lewis Hamilton seems to be having a harder time than Leclerc in the same car: “What’s really happening is that Lewis is at a point where he wants to beat his teammate; 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.

“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.”

The rear suspension update Ferrari rolled out in Belgium seemed to suit Leclerc better than Hamilton. Ferrari later made changes to the Briton’s dampers in an attempt to help him settle into the SF-25 more comfortably, but those adjustments did not deliver what they had hoped for.

Christian Danner links Charles Leclerc’s loss of pace in Hungary to Lewis Hamilton’s struggles

Former F1 driver Christian Danner has suggested that Charles Leclerc’s drop in pace during the Hungarian Grand Prix could be related to Lewis Hamilton’s struggles throughout the weekend.

Danner, like George Russell, believes Ferrari may have lowered Leclerc’s car setup to boost performance while keeping Hamilton’s at a higher ride height to avoid issues with excessive plank wear.

“That could definitely be the case, that with one car, they went risky and said: ‘We’ll go as low as possible.’

“The stiffer you set up the car, the lower you can go, but the worse it is on the tyres, and the worse it handles kerbs. Makes sense; it bounces as if it didn’t have any suspension, just a steel rod inside.

“So it’s possible that at Ferrari they thought: ‘Well, with Hamilton, we’ll play it a bit more conservative. We’ll set it a bit higher.’ And just one millimetre, boom. That makes it safe, but also a few tenths slower. And you can’t underestimate that. That could well be the case.”