Fred Vasseur has confirmed Ferrari’s aim to ‘keep the pace’ with the teams’ upgrade plans across the 2026 Formula 1 season.
From the beginning of the year under the new regulations, Ferrari has taken a constant and aggressive approach to upgrading the SF-26.
The rate of upgrades has brought the prancing horses victories in both Barcelona and Silverstone and raised questions from Toto Wolff on how the Maranello-based team was affording the changes under the cost cap.
However, it hasn’t stopped Ferrari, with the team continuing on and making progress each round. Vasseur reflected on such progress in the first half of the season.
“The first part of the season was, I would say, probably in two stages,” Vasseur said to Motorsport Week and other media.
“The first one is until Spain, when Mercedes was flying, where they scored something like 100 points more than us in four or five events. Of course, after Spain, we came back, we scored more points than Mercedes in these four or five races.
“Where we have to improve is that, if I draw a conclusion based on [Hungary], I would say execution, but execution so far was probably a good one for us from the beginning of the season.”
The engine issue
Despite improving much of the chassis and the engine to a certain extent, the Mercedes engine still leads the field. Vasseur spoke about the downside of the current engine and the plan for the future.
“We know that we have to improve on the engine side.” He said. “We will do it, even if the inertia on the engine is much higher than the chassis.
“The most important thing would be to be able to keep the pace into the development.”
Charles Leclerc has agreed with Vasseur’s sentiments, urging that the team need to continue to be aggressive. Especially with McLaren beginning to close the gap.
“McLaren did a good job for a while, but they don’t have exactly the same philosophy because they are bringing a big package, and I think the last one was in Miami or Canada.” Vassuer told the media.
“For sure, each time they are finding something, they are making a huge gain, but we have a different approach, trying to bring parts to every race, and we have to keep this momentum because there are still 12 races to go.”
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