Monaco is Ferrari's chance to end its F1 drought

The European Formula 1 season finally kicks off with the Monaco Grand Prix, and street racing doesn’t get more iconic than Monte-Carlo.

This year, the paddock arrives in the principality with a subplot that makes it genuinely more intriguing than usual.

The 2026 cars – shorter and lighter – should behave differently through the narrow streets.

The question of whether that translates into actual overtaking, in a place that has historically made passing nearly impossible, is one of the weekend’s most compelling storylines.

For this weekend only, the FIA has removed the designated overtaking zones, meaning the active aerodynamic systems that have reshaped racing in 2026 will sit dormant on Sunday.

It’s Monaco, though, so the race could easily become another procession, but the different power strategies are adding an intriguing element whose result will only be known once the cars get racing on Sunday.

What to watch out for: Ferrari‘s best chance to end its drought

The time appears to have come: Ferrari arrives at a Formula 1 race as the favourite for victory for the first time in a long while, the Scuderia seeking to end a winless streak in grands prix that extends to the 2024 Mexican Grand Prix, over 555 days ago.

Mercedes has been the dominant force so far this year, having won every grand prix so far from pole position — the only blemish on that record a McLaren sprint victory in Miami — and the gap to the field in qualifying has averaged nearly half a second.

On any normal weekend, that is a conversation-ending number. Monaco, however, is not a normal weekend.

It is the least power-sensitive circuit on the calendar, the one place where cornering performance — low and medium-speed in particular — matters most and raw engine output least. And that is precisely where Ferrari has been strongest in 2026.

The SF-26’s cornering pace has arguably been the quickest in the field this year, and the engine profile reinforces the advantage. Ferrari’s power unit has shown strong low-speed pick-up — the characteristic that underpins its impressive starts — while lacking top-end power on the long straights where Mercedes pulls clear elsewhere.

At Monaco, where there are no long straights, that trade-off flips almost entirely in Ferrari’s favour. A responsive engine out of tight corners is an asset here; peak horsepower on a 300-metre straight is almost irrelevant.

Then there is the driver factor. Charles Leclerc arrives at his home race as the main favourite, his 2024 victory here the most recent reminder of his exceptional affinity with these streets.

On the other side of the garage is a reinvigorated Lewis Hamilton, a three-time Monaco winner who arrives following a second place finish in Canada — his best grand prix result as a Ferrari driver. The team is not short of quality in either car.

Monaco, however, doesn’t forgive mistakes, and Ferrari has a record of costly errors around the principality — on the pitwall as much as on the track. The question this weekend is whether the composure and strategic clarity that have sometimes deserted the team here has genuinely improved, and whether Ferrari can meet the expectations placed upon it.

The evidence from 2026 suggests real progress. There is one caveat worth stressing, though: Mercedes has enjoyed a significant pace advantage all season, and Lando Norris — who won here from pole last year — is a genuine threat in Monaco’s slow corners too. Max Verstappen remains a constant regardless of context.

Ferrari is the favourite, but the margin between the frontrunners may be tighter here than anywhere else this season. A perfect weekend may not just be desirable — it may be necessary to win.

Who’s under pressure: McLaren

McLaren arrives at Monaco with a point to prove after a Canadian Grand Prix to forget.

While its pace was strong and it looked like Mercedes’ closest challenger in qualifying, the decision to start on intermediates, followed by a messy race, meant McLaren haemorrhaged points, and the gap to Mercedes in the constructors’ championship is now looking alarming for the defending champions.

McLaren is also celebrating its 1000th grand prix start at Monaco (although that will actually come the following weekend in Barcelona), adding an extra layer of pressure to bounce back and show that its championship chances are not completely derailed.

There are reasons for optimism, however.

Monaco rewards precisely the kind of low-speed cornering performance that McLaren has developed well, and Lando Norris enjoyed a dominant weekend there last year.

But Monaco has a way of punishing teams that are not operating at full sharpness, and McLaren needs to show the Canada blunder was a one-off.

Norris is already 73 points behind championship leader Kimi Antonelli, and while it’s still early days in the season, there are too many drivers in the mix that make a potential recovery trickier.

The start of the European season is the moment to stop losing ground.

McLaren knows all of this. The 1,000th race brings scrutiny as well as celebration, and after the disappointment of Canada, the team needs to demonstrate that the pace and cohesion that made it a genuine championship contender earlier this season have not been lost.

Monaco is the right place to find it again. It just needs to.

Historical highlight: Monaco’s destruction derby

Monaco 1982 should be remembered as an easy victory for Alain Prost. Instead, it is remembered as one of F1’s most remarkable acts of collective self-destruction.

Starting fourth, Prost worked his way to the front after René Arnoux, his Renault team-mate and polesitter, spun and stalled on lap 14, handing over the lead he had spent the opening phase building.

From there, Prost controlled the race with authority, pulling out a 10-second gap over Riccardo Patrese‘s Brabham, with Didier Pironi‘s Ferrari a distant third.

It all looked set for a straightforward victory.

Then, with three laps remaining, light rain began to fall on an already oil-slicked circuit.

Prost pushed too hard through the harbour chicane on lap 74 and flew nose-first into the barriers. Patrese inherited the lead and looked set for victory, only to spin on oil at the Loews hairpin on the very next lap, stalling his engine and surrendering the advantage to Ferrari’s Didier Pironi.

Pironi, the only Ferrari in the field, led with one lap to go. His Ferrari, however, had not been properly charged before the race, and the engine began misfiring in the tunnel on the final lap, stopping dead.

Andrea de Cesaris, suddenly finding himself in the lead, ran out of fuel before he could cross the line.

Derek Daly, next in the queue and running without a rear wing and only half of his front wing after an earlier accident, had his gearbox seized before he could start the final lap.

Into this vacuum rolled Patrese, who had managed to bump-start his Brabham by rolling it downhill after his spin and was now trundling back through the carnage.

He crossed the line to claim his first Formula 1 victory, a win he had, by any reasonable measure, already thrown away.

Pironi, de Cesaris and Daly were classified second, third and sixth, respectively, despite none of them finishing.

Pirelli’s form guide: Monaco GP