How Charles Leclerc will recover from “most difficult weekend” of F1 career

The Ferrari driver was consistently off the pace at last weekend’s Canadian Grand Prix, compared to triumph for team-mate Lewis Hamilton

Charles Leclerc will use Ferrari team-mate Lewis Hamilton’s data from the Canadian Grand Prix to find answers for “the most difficult weekend” of his Formula 1 career.

Although the 28-year-old took a solid points haul with fourth on Sunday, Leclerc was consistently off the pace as he finished over 30 seconds behind runner-up Hamilton.

It was only through George Russell’s retirement from the lead plus McLaren making a mess with both cars that Leclerc was able to finish so high up, having struggled throughout the weekend.

The Monegasque was outqualified by Hamilton for the sprint race, and although he jumped ahead in the shorter contest – fifth to the Briton’s sixth – he lost out to his team-mate again in grand prix qualifying.

Hamilton started Sunday’s race in fifth, a tenth ahead of eighth-placed Leclerc, leading to the seven-time world champion’s best grand prix result since joining Ferrari in 2025.

“It was a horrible, horrible weekend,” said Leclerc, who made his F1 debut in 2018. “I had already said [post-qualifying on Saturday] it was probably the most difficult weekend so far of my Formula 1 career. I’ve finished the race now and I can definitely say it’s the most difficult weekend of my Formula 1 career so far.

Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari

Photo by: Rudy Carezzevoli / Getty Images

“Never could put the tyres in the right window. It has nothing to do with the car of course, Lewis has done an incredible job and congratulations to him. On my side I’ve just been struggling, I had no feeling with the car.

“The good thing, the only positive of the weekend, is that I’ve got Lewis in the same car and I can look at what he did this weekend and try to get answers on why I was just struggling so much.

“The last 15, 20 laps of the race were not very representative as I kind of just wanted to bring the car home, but before that I was just too slow. It’s not good enough.”

It’s not precisely clear yet why Hamilton achieved a better result than Leclerc, a rarity in their time as team-mates, but the 41-year-old did change his approach for Canada by not using Ferrari’s simulator.

Hamilton felt it lacked correlation to real-world conditions at tracks this year and he took the same approach for round two in China, the site of his only other podium in 2026.

But while the simulator-free approach may have caused him to improve, it doesn’t explain the struggles of Leclerc, who simply labelled Circuit Gilles Villeneuve as one of his ‘bogey tracks’.

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari

Photo by: Guido De Bortoli / LAT Images via Getty Images

“Montreal is not a track where historically I’ve been particularly strong,” said Leclerc, whose one and only podium in Canada came in 2019.

“A bit like Melbourne, Melbourne and here are two tracks where I struggle particularly a lot with my driving style, the rhythm of the corners doesn’t fit well with my driving style.

“If you put on top of that the issues we’ve had on the brakes on Friday, I never really got the rhythm on Friday, and then on Saturday it was more about the tyres, but the tyres are the same for everybody.

“It’s not like I was in a much worse place compared to Lewis, but I just had zero feeling and I couldn’t take the rhythm – today was no exception!”

The result leaves Leclerc third in the championship, three points above fourth-placed Hamilton, while Ferrari is second in the constructors’ standings, 72 points behind Mercedes.