Hamilton and Leclerc explain Ferrari's qualifying struggles at Monza

0.001 seconds. That was the only margin between Lewis Hamilton and a totally disappointing Saturday afternoon at Monza. When his SF-26 crossed the line 10th in Q2, just a thousandth of a second ahead of Gabriel Bortoleto, many Ferrari fans breathed a sigh of relief. But that was not a performance to be proud of for the home team, rather a warning sign of deeper issues that telemetry data cannot fully reveal. Ferrari arrived at the weekend with high hopes. After engine upgrades, the team believed they could close the gap to Mercedes and Red Bull. Yet in qualifying, they could only manage 9th and 10th in Q2, over 0.6 seconds behind the Q2 pacesetter Kimi Antonelli. A paradox: at a circuit famous for high speeds, Ferrari lacked speed on the longest straights. Hamilton admitted he was very happy with the car after FP3, making no changes for qualifying. Q1 went smoothly. But in Q2, things started to go wrong. “We were planning to wait, nobody wanted to go out early,” Hamilton explained. “Charles didn't want to go first, so we had to wait, and then we only got one push lap.” As a result, he was on the back foot. But the more interesting story lies in the fact that Hamilton was almost the last to leave the pit lane. “I didn't have any wheels on the car, basically, the engine was running, everyone left and I went out 25 seconds behind everyone.” He missed the slipstream and lost his braking rhythm. This shows that Ferrari's management was so focused on giving both drivers an equal tow that they lost their own initiative. “We just stumbled,” Hamilton admitted. Leclerc, who was expected to shine at Monza, did not fare much better. He spoke of “quite a lot of issues in the background” and particularly highlighted energy management. “We have been too sub-optimal,” he said. Data shows that in Q2, on the exit of Variante Ascari, Leclerc’s speed was 5 km/h lower than in Q3, a clear sign of a lack of energy for the hybrid system. The worrying thing is that this problem had not appeared in practice. “To start dealing with them during qualifying is not ideal,” he said. There is an important detail: Leclerc said the race will be hard because straight-line speed is still lacking, despite the new engine bringing improvements. From my observation over more than three decades of watching F1, problems like this never happen randomly. When a team shows they are struggling with tactical deployment and energy management at one of the most demanding tracks of the season, it is a sign of an underlying illness. Every collapse has its premise; only few people are willing to look at it in advance. Here, the Q2 failure is not merely a tactical mistake, but the consequence of Ferrari failing to recognize the limits of their energy system when pressure peaked. Many will blame the fact that they only had one push lap, but I see a bigger issue: Ferrari seemed to have no contingency plan when things did not go according to plan. They sacrificed individual opportunities to create a fair picture – but in modern F1, that fairness is never optimal. Look at Pierre Gasly, who surprised everyone by taking pole; his team worked as a single unit, not as two separate individuals. “Pierre did a great job,” Hamilton said, and he wasn't joking. That is exactly what Ferrari lacked. Every tracking number needs to be put on the operating table, not on an altar. When I look at Leclerc’s lap comparison between Q2 and Q3, the speed improvement on the Ascari exit is missing in his earlier run. That can only be explained by a lack of energy. But the bigger question: why did they only discover this problem when they entered qualifying? A big team like Ferrari must have a stricter energy control process, especially at a track where 80% of the lap is full throttle. This is not the first time I have seen a team “fall asleep” in practice and then pay for it when qualifying begins. And if you think that just getting through Q2 means everything is fine, listen to Leclerc: “We have been far from perfect during this qualifying. We've had quite a lot of issues in the background. It's a very demanding and difficult track to optimise everything power unit wise.” He said directly that the energy problem “did not appear before qualifying” – and that he had to start his last lap in Q2 with new tyres but the battery was empty, making his lap time “nowhere”. This lack of preparation reminds me of a classic phrase I have adopted after years of observation: Data only tells part of the story; the rest lies in knowing how to listen. Here, it seems Ferrari did not listen to the warnings from their own system. The only bright spot for Ferrari is that they will start from the second row thanks to Oscar Piastri’s penalty. Hamilton and Leclerc will be 4th and 5th respectively, a good position to fight for a podium at home. Hamilton believes that gives them a “fighting chance” with George Russell, who has the fastest car on the straights. But even Hamilton had to admit: “We're lacking on straights still, and that's just the way it is.” He talked about the team needing to work together, because the 59-point deficit to Mercedes is too big for one individual to close by himself. When the 53-lap race begins, the energy equation will become far more brutal. At Monza, drivers often have to “yo-yo” – accelerating and braking hard repeatedly, each lap optimizing energy recovery and deployment. If Ferrari cannot find a solution to the problem that appeared on Saturday, even keeping 4th and 5th will be a challenge. Can they break free from the shadow of Russell and Gasly? Leclerc hopes that corner speed can compensate for the lack of straight-line pace, but on a high-speed track, that is not easy to achieve. I remember a principle that has stayed with me for 40 years: There is no such thing as a sudden failure in F1, only unresolved issues that were ignored for too long. Ferrari has had an entire season to prepare for the championship battle, but they are still tripping over basic operational errors. The fact that they avoided elimination by 0.001s in Q2 may be a lucky sign, but if they do not learn from their mistakes, they will soon pay a bigger price. The question is not whether they can win at Monza, but whether they can stay awake enough to listen to the voice of data before it is too late.