Marc Surer believes that Charles Leclerc remains the faster Ferrari driver—though the Monegasque must reduce his number of mistakes
Lewis Hamilton has recently beaten Charles Leclerc three times in a row in the internal Ferrari duel. In Canada and Monaco, the record-holding world champion finished second in each race, and at the last race in Barcelona, he even stood at the top of the podium.
While this has allowed the Brit to climb to second place in the world championship standings, Leclerc has failed to even see the checkered flag in his last two races in a row. According to Marc Surer, it’s not a matter of pure speed that the momentum is clearly on Hamilton’s side right now.
“For me, Charles is still the faster driver,” says the expert in an exclusive interview on the Formel1.de YouTube channel. However, the Monegasque is currently making “simply too many mistakes,” according to the longtime Formula 1 driver.
In this context, Surer has noticed that this has “happened quite often in his career.” “He’s incredibly fast; he has an unbelievable number of pole positions. But when it really counts, something always gets in the way,” Surer criticizes.
In fact, Leclerc’s error rate has been too high lately. At his home race in Monaco, he crashed—even though he himself blamed the brakes—and at the following Grand Prix in Barcelona, he spun out again during qualifying in the decisive Q3.
Leclerc therefore needs to “really make sure he gets it together,” says Surer, because: “If he’s the faster driver, he has to be able to prove it and have a flawless weekend. “ But that’s exactly the kind of weekend Leclerc hasn’t had lately.
”Actually, he just needs to forget that Lewis Hamilton is suddenly ahead of him,“ Surer advises. Leclerc needs to focus on himself and ”do his job,“ says the expert, who explains that the Monegasque driver now needs a ”perfect weekend.”
“Then his confidence will return,” Surer is certain. In the Drivers’ Championship, Leclerc is now 40 points behind Hamilton and a full 81 points behind leader Kimi Antonelli following his two scoreless races in Monaco and Barcelona.
Expert Jacques Villeneuve therefore recently called for Ferrari to now focus entirely on Hamilton in the championship “if they want to have even a small chance at victory.” Surer, however, believes it is still “far too early” for that, he emphasizes.
“Hopefully, Charles has put those retirements behind him. And if he starts scoring points now, he’ll suddenly be a contender again,” said the Swiss expert. But right now, there’s a high risk that the 2026 World Championship train will leave without the Monegasque driver once again.
