Ferrari Team Principal Fred Vasseur has said the team is aware it is lagging behind Mercedes in straight-line speed after opening rounds of the 2026 Formula 1 season.
Three rounds into F1’s latest era, and a pecking order has started to emerge with the German marque sitting atop the Constructors’ standings in dominant stead.
The W17 has won consecutive Grands Prix, in Australia, China and Japan, with the iconic Italian marque positioned as the best prospect of catching up to Mercedes.
Lewis Hamilton scored his first Ferrari podium in China, with Leclerc taking P3 at Melbourne and Japan.
That said, the SF-26 isn’t really firing on all cylinders to pose a real threat to the duo of George Russell and Andrea Kimi Antonelli.
Vasseur insists, however, that the team has isolated a critical weakness in its package – its straight-line performance – citing Hamilton’s race at the Suzuka International Circuit, last weekend.
“What is clear this season is that as soon as you are not in the overtake mode, you are losing a little bit of pace and you are in this situation to have a train on the track,” he told media including Motorsport Week.
“When he [Hamilton] lost the one-second gap on the car ahead, it was a bit more difficult.
“We know that we have a deficit of performance on a straight line, and we have to work on it, but it is what it is.”
Ferrari details plans to utilise April F1 break to reduce Mercedes deficit
Both Hamilton and team-mate Charles Leclerc have also spoken about the SF-26’s inadequacies on the straights.
Whether that is an aerodynamic flaw or to do with the power unit side of things is something Ferrari will have to figure out in the five weeks’ it has before the Miami GP.
The cancellation of the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian races, scheduled for the month of April, have given all the teams a chance to claw back some performance.
Ferrari are no different, though, Vasseur explained the team’s priority is to be efficient, in the interregnum, than to just deck an update on the car for the sake of it.
“For sure, we have a lot of work like everybody in the paddock,” he added. “It is the beginning of the homologation of the car.
” I think that we have done some things to improve. Now, we have good data from the first three races to understand the competitiveness of the car, where we are okayish and where we are not.
“Performance is coming from everywhere, but we have to take a step in every single area of the performance.
“I am sure that it is true for us, but it will also be true for everybody on the grid. It is more a matter of doing a better job than the others than to do a step.”
Ferrari will be exhausting its filming days in April.
Reports suggest that the SF-26 will be fitted with a brand-new spec floor for the 200km event at Monza with Hamilton and Leclerc focused on bringing the team’s first major upgrade package to Miami, in May.
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