Ferrari hasn’t quite had the best of times and the worst of times, as Charles Dickens would put it, so far in the 2026 Formula 1 season, but team principal Fred Vasseur still views the first 11 rounds of the year as following a twofold pattern.
Ferrari has held second in the constructors’ championship ever since the opening round of the campaign, but has been challenging Mercedes’ dominant Silver Arrows more and more consistently, with Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc winning at Barcelona and Silverstone respectively.
“The first part of the season was, I would say, probably in two stages,” Vasseur commented following the Hungarian Grand Prix. “The first one is until Spain, when Mercedes was flying, they scored something like 100 points more than us in four or five events. And after Spain, when we came back, we scored more points than Mercedes in these four or five races.”
Vasseur’s analysis roughly checks out based on the actual points scored by each team, though one should point out the Mercedes racers have suffered a little more hardship of late – including George Russell’s technical retirement from the lead in Canada and unfortunate drive-through penalty in Monaco, while a mechanical failure took Kimi Antonelli out of second at Silverstone. Russell was spun out of the Spa-Francorchamps race and scored just six points in Hungary, with those events down to various technical issues.
Of course, Ferrari hasn’t been immune to problems in competitive sessions, as shown by its scrappy Hungaroring weekend.
George Russell, Mercedes, Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari
Photo by: John Thys / AFP via Getty Images
“Where we have to improve is, if I draw a conclusion based on today, I would say execution,” Vasseur continued. “But execution so far was probably a good one for us from the beginning of the season. We know that we have to improve on the engine side, and we will do it, even if the inertia on the engine is much higher than on the chassis [as development takes more time]. The most important would be to be able to keep the pace into the development.”
Looking at qualifying, Ferrari’s gap to pole position was an average of 0.442s until Monaco but has been just 0.204s since Barcelona, hinting at decent progress – especially relative to Mercedes. Still, rival top teams haven’t exactly been slacking off; over the same periods, Red Bull’s deficit went from 0.577s to 0.466s, while McLaren’s decreased from 0.469s to 0.383s, with Lando Norris taking pole in Hungary amid further updates to the MCL40.
“McLaren did a huge step forward, but they don’t have exactly the same philosophy, because they are bringing a big package,” Vasseur continued. “I think the last one was Miami or Canada. For sure, each time that they are bringing something, they are making a huge step.
“But we have a different approach, trying to bring parts every race. And we have to keep this momentum, because there are still 12 races to go – I don’t know if it’s 11, 12 or 10, but it’s a lot. And we have room for improvement on the chassis everywhere, and we have to keep this pace.”
Meanwhile, Hamilton actually feels quite optimistic about Ferrari bridging the gap to Mercedes when the Prancing Horse finally updates its power unit.
“It has been an amazing first half, given we’ve been probably three or four tenths down on the straights based on power for the first half of the season,” Hamilton reckoned. “I know the guys are pushing hard to bring upgrades for that.
Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari
Photo by: Guido De Bortoli / LAT Images via Getty Images
“We’ve been bringing upgrades weekend in, weekend out. We’ve got hopefully more to come in the second half and we just keep on pushing. I think the second half will be stronger. Usually the second half is a stronger period for me. So I’ll really take this time to reset and try and come back stronger, fitter and better mentally prepared.”
As for Leclerc, he too believes the development race will be key in the remainder of the season.
“It’s a championship again where upgrading is so much more significant than in the past, because it makes us do such a big step forward,” the Monegasque pointed out. “We’ve seen it with McLaren this weekend [in Hungary]. So it’s going to be important that we stay on top of it, and that we keep being as aggressive as we’ve been with the development programme. And we’ll see how it goes in Zandvoort.”
Additional reporting by Roberto Chinchero and Stuart Codling
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