Juan Pablo Montoya predicts ‘life will get harder’ for Charles Leclerc as Ferrari make Lewis Hamilton concessions

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Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton are having a tough old time with Ferrari and their 2025 F1 challenger, the SF-25.

Hamilton has been suffering the most with Ferrari, with the seven-time world champion currently on the longest podium drought of his career, which could turn into a record for the most number of Grands Prix for a Ferrari driver not to score a top-three finish.

Morale has been low at Ferrari since the seventh round of the season at Imola.

The Tifosi would have loved to see their beloved Scuderia celebrate on the podium, but the best Hamilton and Leclerc could muster up was fourth and sixth, respectively.

READ MORE: Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton’s life outside F1 from net worth to family

Juan Pablo Montoya believes Charles Leclerc will suffer if Ferrari develop towards Lewis Hamilton’s driving style

Speaking with AS Colombia, former F1 driver Juan Pablo Montoya revealed why Hamilton is struggling so much as opposed to Leclerc in the same car, explaining, “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 upgrade Ferrari brought to Belgium looked to have favoured Leclerc a lot more than Hamilton. Ferrari had to amend the dampers on Hamilton’s SF-25 for him to be more comfortable, which ended up not having the intended improvement.

READ MORE: Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc’s life outside F1 from net worth to girlfriend

Christian Danner theorised that Charles Leclerc’s loss of pace in Hungary was linked to Lewis Hamilton’s lack of pace

Former F1 driver Christian Danner recently theorised that Leclerc’s sudden loss of pace in the Hungarian Grand Prix is linked to Hamilton’s poor pace that was evident over the entirety of the race weekend.

Danner shared a similar theory to George Russell, that Ferrari engineers planned to go lower with Leclerc’s car to improve performance and left Hamilton’s car at the correct height to alleviate any issues that might come with excessive plank wear on the bottom of the SF-25.

The German said, “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 curbs. 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.”