No party for Ferrari: why Monaco success doesn’t tell the whole story. Ferrari impressed in Monaco but the result was misleading.

Ferrari had approached the Monaco Grand Prix with low expectations. Already in Imola, Charles Leclerc had anticipated that the SF-25 would struggle through the corners of the Principality, but it became clear from Friday that the car wasn’t performing as badly as expected. Then on Saturday came confirmation: the home driver came just a few thousandths away from pole position, while Lewis Hamilton placed his car on the second row before receiving a penalty for impeding.

The second and fifth place finishes in the race gave Ferrari a valuable haul of 28 points, second only to what McLaren achieved, bringing Ferrari just 5 points away from second place in the Constructors’ Championship. Even Charles Leclerc, speaking at the press conference, emphasized his surprise: “I’m never happy with second place, but looking at the whole season, this podium is a positive result. We had low expectations for this weekend because we don’t adapt well to low-speed tracks. But Monaco is a unique circuit, there are bumps, you jump over kerbs, and our car likes that. My 18 points and Lewis’s 10 are very valuable. In the end, when Max was ahead, I believed until the end. I spent the whole night thinking about two or three points where I could try to overtake Lando Norris, and I was ready to risk everything to do it. However, those opportunities never came. I tried in the last few laps, but Lando realized it and defended well.”

However, it would be a big stretch to talk about a “reborn” car, because the Monaco GP has always been an exception on the calendar. There are two factors that played in the SF-25’s favor yesterday: the first is that the track doesn’t require complex balance, as it only features slow corners; in contrast, we’ve seen other circuits where fast stretches alternate with tight corners, requiring compromises that are often hard to find. The second strength was the ride height: all teams opted for a higher setup, given the demands of Monaco and the numerous kerbs, so the SF-25 ended up being more aligned with the competition. On the other hand, the Spanish GP will be the real litmus test for the true performance of the cars.