‘They click there every year’ – Piastri flags Ferrari danger in Monaco

Oscar Piastri admits McLaren is wary about the challenge Ferrari poses in Monaco, as it is a circuit where the Ferrari F1 cars “click”.

Although Mercedes has won every grand prix this season, McLaren, Red Bull and, to an extent, Ferrari narrowed the deficit at the Miami Grand Prix when all three teams brought a host of upgrades to the track.

Oscar Piastri warns Ferrari could be pole favourites

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Mercedes, though, reasserted itself in Canada when it updated the W17 and claimed the weekend’s crucial P1s.

McLaren, though, didn’t give itself a fair shot at fighting Mercedes as while Lando Norris and Piastri lined up third and fourth on the grid, they did so on the wrong tyres – the intermediates – and were soon into the pits on a dry track.

It meant Lewis Hamilton joined Kimi Antonelli on the podium in second place, while Max Verstappen was third for Red Bull.

Monaco, though, is a different story.

The street circuit with its bumps, kerbs and slow corners has been a good track for Ferrari in recent years, with Charles Leclerc claiming pole position in three of the last five grands prix.

This season, if Ferrari clinches pole position, the Scuderia will have an even greater advantage with the SF-26 better at launches than its rivals, although McLaren isn’t far behind.

And as everyone knows in Monaco, if a driver gets to the front, he can control the pace as passing is not easy.

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“I’m not sure,” Piastri said when asked for his prediction ahead of the Monaco Grand Prix. “I’m expecting Ferrari to be quick in Monaco. I mean, they click there every year – somehow.

“I think this year, with the kind of characteristics they have, looking very good in the corners, and maybe struggling a bit more on the straights, I think Monaco is going to be a good track for them.

“So let’s see, hopefully it could be a good one for us as well.”

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella agrees with Piastri and Norris, who also says Ferrari is the team to beat, as the circuit’s characteristics play to Ferrari’s strengths.

“I think when we look at the overlay based on the GPS speed, we can see that Ferrari is definitely a competitive chassis in the corners. Like the first sector, they’ve been always very competitive,” he said.

“Normally these features they tend to reward on a track like Monaco. In addition to that, we see, for instance, in Canada, the Ferrari loses time in the straights, but you don’t have much of that in Monaco.”

As such he says his drivers are “pretty right in seeing Ferrari like possibly the favourite car for a pole position in Monaco”.

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