Juan Pablo Montoya wasn’t ‘impressed’ by Charles Leclerc’s win but found one thing ‘remarkable’

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Juan Pablo Montoya was unmoved by Charles Leclerc’s victory at the British Grand Prix last weekend, but did find the Ferrari star’s turnaround versus Lewis Hamilton “remarkable”.

The first day of the race weekend at Silverstone had set Charles Leclerc up for yet another round of racing in the shadow of his in-form teammate Lewis Hamilton as the seven-time world champion claimed pole position for the British GP Sprint.

Charles Leclerc has never won more than three Grands Prix in a season 🏆 Predict how many he will take in 2026?

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However, the Ferrari ace seemingly turned it around after the conclusion of the Sprint race, outqualifying Hamilton for the second successive Grand Prix, which preceded his first victory in F1 since the latter stages of the 2024 campaign.

F1 pundit Jolyon Palmer was “fascinated” by the work Leclerc had put in to turn his weekend around at Silverstone, and fellow former driver Juan Pablo Montoya is in complete agreement.

• READ MORE: Lewis Hamilton told why Charles Leclerc’s British Grand Prix win was ‘particularly great’ for him

Juan Pablo Montoya hails Ferrari engineers for ‘remarkable’ Charles Leclerc turnaround

During his comments to the press after securing a P2 grid slot for the British Grand Prix, the Monegasque driver outlined how he had spent the majority of Friday evening sifting through his own data in order to see where he could find gains over his teammate.

Citing his “intuition”, he managed to adapt the setup of his SF-26 to better suit his driving style, instead of blindly copying Hamilton’s setup, which had given Leclerc some issues in previous rounds of racing.

Speaking via AS Colombia, Montoya detailed how he was not “impressed” by Leclerc’s ability to claim victory, but found his turnaround from Friday to Saturday “remarkable”.

“Charles won, and I wasn’t all that impressed that he won,” he began, before adding, “I find it more remarkable that they were able to sort things out, that they were able to understand what they had to do and that they changed their approach to the one they needed.

“Although they did stray a little from what they were doing with Lewis and went their own way. Antonelli was actually the one who was going to win the race. He was going to win it easily – he had the strategy, he had the pace, and he had the car.”

• READ MORE: Ferrari urged to make ‘extreme’ Lewis Hamilton decision if they want to win the 2026 F1 title

Leclerc also highlighted his hopes that the uptick in performance at Silverstone would carry over into the following rounds of the season, rather than being a one-off due to the British circuit’s characteristics.

The F1 grid will congregate in Spa-Francorchamps for the Belgian Grand Prix in just over a week, which carries a similar sort of nature. If anywhere can confirm Leclerc’s bounce-back, it will be there.