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Hamilton's first Ferrari win hands Leclerc a masterclass in championship thinking

Juan Pablo Montoya says Charles Leclerc has a rare opportunity to study Lewis Hamilton's title-winning instincts after the seven-time champion secured his 106th career victory at the Spanish Grand Prix, while Leclerc retired with a power-steering failure.

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Hamilton's first Ferrari win hands Leclerc a masterclass in championship thinking
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Lewis Hamilton claimed his first victory for Ferrari at the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix, executing a three-stop strategy and capitalising on a timely virtual safety car to take his 106th career win — while team-mate Charles Leclerc was left watching from the garage after retiring with a power-steering failure.

Former Formula 1 driver Juan Pablo Montoya believes the contrast between the two Ferrari drivers’ weekends presents Leclerc with something genuinely valuable. Speaking on F1 TV’s post-race analysis programme, Montoya argued that watching Hamilton operate at his best is an education in itself.

“This is a really important time, for example, for Charles to look at how Lewis brought the team forward and learn,” Montoya said. “Of course, he wants to beat Lewis, and he will beat Lewis in a lot of races as well, but this is an amazing opportunity that Charles has to understand what makes Lewis Hamilton a seven-time world champion.”

Leclerc’s weekend had unravelled before the race even began. A crash in qualifying left him starting from a compromised position, and the power-steering loss that ended his afternoon meant he had no meaningful say in the outcome. Despite that, the Monegasque was generous in his assessment of his team-mate’s performance.

“I don’t want to take any credit for today,” Leclerc said after the race. “I don’t think I’ve done much for the team. I think Lewis and the team eventually won it on their own, and I wish I had been a bit more in front to maybe be a bit more in the mix of things. But it wasn’t my fault. So a huge congratulations to Lewis, who has been on it now for quite a bit and has been incredible, and a huge congrats to the team as well.”

The result moves Hamilton to second in the drivers’ championship, 41 points behind leader Kimi Antonelli and nine points clear of George Russell in third. Leclerc remains fourth, now 40 points adrift of his team-mate — a gap that underlines how much the Barcelona weekend cost him relative to Hamilton’s breakthrough moment with the Scuderia.

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