Lewis Hamilton hopeful of Monaco F1 win

Lewis Hamilton is hopeful for a potential victory in this weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix, despite admitting Ferrari is “massively down” to Mercedes in terms of PU power.

Ferrari started the season impressively with podiums in the first three Formula 1 races, showing signs of improvement from its woeful 2025.

But with many rival teams improving their cars, the Scuderia has been struggling to match the level of Mercedes, which has won every race so far, barring the Miami Sprint.

After a large number of upgrades in Miami did little to remedy as Charles Leclerc of Ferrari finished third.

Hamilton’s best performance for the team so far is a thrilling second-place finish in Canada, although he was heard during the race complaining of a lack of power when chasing Max Verstappen.

The seven-time World Champion is far happier with the SF-26 than he was with its predecessor. But ahead of the race in Monaco, he confessed in Montreal that it still holds a significant disadvantage to the Mercedes.

“That’s [Monaco] the one track that power is not king. I think that’s definitely [dependent on pure] car performance. I think our car could be really strong there,” he said.

“I’m really going to focus on making sure I arrive with the same energy as I had this weekend [Canada], really study hard with the engineers to make sure we position the car in the right place from Practice 1.

“And 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. 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 Additional Development and Upgrade Opportunities [ADUO] scheme was introduced because of this year’s new radical regulations cycle, enabling certain teams to be afforded specific assistance.

Hamilton is hopeful that this will help them to produce some consistent results for the Scuderia.

“Even when you get the ‘Overtake’ [mode], you get within a second, they still pull away,” Hamilton added.

“So that’s how much grunt that they have and we’re massively down.

“But I really hope with this new rule [ADUO] that enables us to try to improve some performance, so we can get back in the fight with them.

“But Monaco should be fun.”