2026 Scuderia Ferrari HP F1 Team

[Sbrillo88]

The engineers are not the problem. One of the problems for Ferrari, as his former Team Principal Maurizio Arrivabene said in an interview for Sky Tv Italy are the composite materials.

"We're a bit behind on composites and aerodynamics, because we continue to make engines better than anyone else.
The English in the Oxford area have developed that type of technology and are ahead of the curve. To close this gap in tradition, but also in expertise and universities very close to production, we have a lot of work to do.
But we're getting there. It takes patience, but Ferrari is on the right path. And that kind of progress could also be useful to the country - 30,000 people work in England. It's not just about winning races, it's about progressing industrially."

But the most important problems are how the things (development, research and other programs) are managed inside the GES. Some aerodynamic chiefs (who said Cardile? and why?) in the recent past not even listened to ideas of the "juniors". The Sf'25 born precisely when there was internal problems in GES with Cardile that left the team a bit after.

Now with Serra they change approach and they gave space to all engineers. All ideas are welcome. Vasseur said that Serra evaluated more than 50 front wings for "progetto 678", the new Ferrari.

I think that this year will be very important for the aspirations to win in the next future for the team. We'll see

[SharkY]

Adami specifically has been controversial at least since the Vettel era and anybody following F1 for more than a year knows that.
[...]
The reality is that COMMUNICATION is a MAJOR part of his job and he's bad at it. In F1 you want to have the best people possible and improve whatever you can. Maybe they can't find anyone better - fair enough.
But insisting that he's one of the best in the business is just gaslighting based on what anyone can see and hear with their own eyes.

Did you actually listen to all of Lewis-Adami conversations, to be able to say he is bad at it? Can you give us some comprehensive evaluation based on that, not on cherry picked snippets?
It's not like Hamilton has never been angry with the communication with Bono, or Max with GP.

You're saying that he's doing so much great work behind the scenes - MAYBE, YES! But that's pure conjecture on your side as well, as nobody of us is in a position to verify that.
[...]
If you can't follow that argument then so be it. Let's put this whole discussion to rest.

There is only one person who can truly verify that: the driver he is working with. And for some reason Vettel, Sainz and Hamilton continued to work with the guy for multiple years. That should be enough of an argument.
Vettel even had some experience with him in Toro Rosso and likely brought him in (as they joined at the same moment). None of these drivers were Ferrari rookies, who just didn't know any better. Each of them, had an ample experience with other race engineers (like a legendary Bono!), and yet they never wanted a change.

I see only 3 option, why this would happen:
a) he is some kind of an illegitimate child of a Ferrari board member, and drivers are forced against their will,
b) he is bad at communication, but must be doing some helluva job behind the scenes,
c) he is actually quite a comepetent race engineer, but has some hiccup moments, which don't degrade his relations with drivers as much as you believe they do.

[Waz]

The engineers are not the problem. One of the problems for Ferrari, as his former Team Principal Maurizio Arrivabene said in an interview for Sky Tv Italy are the composite materials.

"We're a bit behind on composites and aerodynamics, because we continue to make engines better than anyone else.
The English in the Oxford area have developed that type of technology and are ahead of the curve. To close this gap in tradition, but also in expertise and universities very close to production, we have a lot of work to do.
But we're getting there. It takes patience, but Ferrari is on the right path. And that kind of progress could also be useful to the country - 30,000 people work in England. It's not just about winning races, it's about progressing industrially."

But the most important problems are how the things (development, research and other programs) are managed inside the GES. Some aerodynamic chiefs (who said Cardile? and why?) in the recent past not even listened to ideas of the "juniors". The Sf'25 born precisely when there was internal problems in GES with Cardile that left the team a bit after.

Now with Serra they change approach and they gave space to all engineers. All ideas are welcome. Vasseur said that Serra evaluated more than 50 front wings for "progetto 678", the new Ferrari.

I think that this year will be very important for the aspirations to win in the next future for the team. We'll see

The problem with the SF-25 was precisely that Cardile left during a critical phase, and all the upheaval around Binotto into Vasseur era must have left a leadership void to carry on seamlessly.

Cardile was also overseeing a project he disagreed with, and probably was not fully focused on it. He believed the suspension was still good enough for one more season and not worth changing.

Hopefully the mistakes have been corrected in the design.

[ScuderiaLeo]

Silvia, Scuderia Ferrari's long time head of media (has been with them for 7 yrs) will be moving to Ferrari corporate. Maria Conti, who joined Ferrari late last year, will be taking her position.

[mstar]

Hammy Fans need to calm down. Us Ferrari fans always loved Riccy. People forget he is one of the most respected race engineers in F1. His attention to detail/race car engineering is top notch. His experience in cars is a big asset. The issue is maybe not optimum comms. However i rather have a Great set-up car and rubbish comms / accent. Lewis mostly just needs Adami to give him basic info he isn't a rookie anymore. I think they will Stick with Adami.

Lewis has a performance engineer who is from Merc, who comes on the radio start of the races/practice sessions MAYBE they can groom him into race car engineer? and have adami like andrew shov role across both cars?

[F1NAC]

Silvia, Scuderia Ferrari's long time head of media (has been with them for 7 yrs) will be moving to Ferrari corporate. Maria Conti, who joined Ferrari late last year, will be taking her position.

Read few days ago that Conti will take position and answer directly to Vigna.

[Fakepivot]

Read few days ago that Conti will take position and answer directly to Vigna.

why does vigna wants to put his nose where it don't belong... really wish Ferrari corp kept out of there racing division

[Emag]

First confirmation that Charles Leclerc will start to look elsewhere if the results don't come

The same Monegasque admitted that the first races will be fundamental to decide his future and a lack of competitiveness will undoubtedly sanction the end of the ten-year relationship between him and Maranello.

I guess Leclerc has had enough disappointment. I suppose the top candidates would be Aston or McLaren. Somehow I don't see Leclerc at RedBull and I believe Mercedes isn't going to screw their drivers for anyone other than Max.

Whereas Aston will have a spot once Alonso retires, which could be this year. And at McLaren, there's been some hints that Oscar could move. Those Mark Webber comments about Oscar "brushing up on his Italian" were intriguing. Seems like there might have been talks in the paddock throughout this year already.

But I suppose it depends a lot on how the pecking order turns out in 2026. McLaren and Aston need to "prove" they are top teams in this new regulation as well. I doubt Charles moves if Ferrari isn't in contention but they're faster than McLaren and Aston this year.

[AR3-GP]

That interview is over a month old.
https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/char ... ning-2026/

[Emag]

That interview is over a month old.
https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/char ... ning-2026/

My bad then, hadn’t seen it before.

[ScuderiaLeo]

My bad then, hadn’t seen it before.

The interview is indeed old but it's curious AR is reporting it now.

They rarely post about anything related to the drivers, contracts, etc unless they have verified it independently. Generally they're more focused on the team and car.

I wonder what has occurred behind the scenes to make them write about this.

[AR3-GP]

My bad then, hadn’t seen it before.

The interview is indeed old but it's curious AR is reporting it now.

They rarely post about anything related to the drivers, contracts, etc unless they have verified it independently. Generally they're more focused on the team and car.

I wonder what has occurred behind the scenes to make them write about this.

Leclerc’s contract isn’t the focus of the article. It’s a footnote. It’s presented in the wider context which everyone knows by now. Ground effect era was a failure. Frederick Vasseur was given a stay of execution. If Ferrari don’t come out swinging, the team will implode. Elkann will come for the head of Vasseur. The Sir will retire. The predestined one will depart. It will set them back many years.

[catent]

My bad then, hadn’t seen it before.

The interview is indeed old but it's curious AR is reporting it now.

They rarely post about anything related to the drivers, contracts, etc unless they have verified it independently. Generally they're more focused on the team and car.

I wonder what has occurred behind the scenes to make them write about this.

Leclerc’s contract isn’t the focus of the article. It’s a footnote. It’s presented in the wider context which everyone knows by now. Ground effect era was a failure. Frederick Vasseur was given a stay of execution. If Ferrari don’t come out swinging, the team will implode. Elkann will come for the head of Vasseur. The Sir will retire. The predestined one will depart. It will set them back many years.

You can say Ferrari’s ground effect era has been a failure by Ferrari’s own standards, but that’s very different from calling it a failure in a broader sense. Ferrari were literally a handful of points away from a WCC in 2024; that’s falling short of expectations, not failure.

They started 2022 strong but then TD39 hit. The rest of 2022 went sideways following TD-39 and 2023 started off in the wrong direction with correlation and platform issues. By 2024, they’d largely stabilized things, had a genuinely competitive car, and executed well over a full season (for the most part ... the technical issues from Barcelona through Zandvoort were problematic). Then 2025 drifted again, seemingly as a result of a fundamental issue regarding suspension/mechanical platform vis-a-vis ride height. It was not a straight decline but instead a series of technical course corrections, some handled successfully and some not.

Red Bull might be the best example of how narrative noise is largely meaningless. They were very good in 2022, genuinely unbeatable in 2023, then slipped to being the third or fourth-fastest car for large parts of 2024. In 2025 they were all over the map, sometimes the fourth-fastest car, sometimes the fastest, entirely dependent on technical development, upgrades, and setup direction. During this past season, there was nonstop noise around Red Bull: rumors about Verstappen leaving, talk about Newey’s departure and how much it had weakened them, questions about Horner and the team’s internal culture, the leadership change with Mekies taking over, the ongoing political tension between the Thai and Austrian sides of ownership.

People were saying the exact same thing then that they’re now saying about Ferrari: Red Bull were imploding, it was over. And yet, despite all of that swirling, Verstappen came within a couple of points of winning the WDC late in 2025. Not because the noise went away, not because everyone suddenly got along, but because they found performance; once they unlocked the right technical direction/setup window, the results quickly followed.

McLaren fits the same mold from the opposite direction. They were nowhere in 2022 and genuinely awful at the start of 2023. Midway through that season they overhauled the car, brought significant upgrades, fixed major correlation issues, and completely transformed their performance. Within a short span they were championship contenders: WCC in 2024, and WCC/WDC in 2025. If you’d applied this same implosion logic to McLaren heading into the 2023 season, it would’ve been proven wrong within a handful of months.

None of this is to say that sustained poor performance wouldn’t eventually create real problems. But that’s very different from the claim that Ferrari must start the 2026 regulations strongly or they will inevitably implode. We have multiple examples of teams unlocking significant performance with the right technical interventions within a given season. The idea that a slow start in the first few races under these new regulations means Ferrari (or any given team) is permanently compromised for the rest of the season, just isn’t true. Modern F1 is driven by technical prowess and simulation/wind tunnel correlation; when those things line up, performance can swing quickly.

[ScuderiaLeo]

I didn't mean to imply it was the only thing in the article, I'm just curious why they're bringing any of this up now. Everyone knows Leclerc's manager is talking to other teams, anyone denying is just, well in denial for lack of a better word.

I guess there's nothing else to report other than old news and they need to pad the word count, Ferrari is extremely tight lipped this off season. Only a few more weeks until the first test.

[sucof]

The interview is indeed old but it's curious AR is reporting it now.

They rarely post about anything related to the drivers, contracts, etc unless they have verified it independently. Generally they're more focused on the team and car.

I wonder what has occurred behind the scenes to make them write about this.

Leclerc’s contract isn’t the focus of the article. It’s a footnote. It’s presented in the wider context which everyone knows by now. Ground effect era was a failure. Frederick Vasseur was given a stay of execution. If Ferrari don’t come out swinging, the team will implode. Elkann will come for the head of Vasseur. The Sir will retire. The predestined one will depart. It will set them back many years.

You can say Ferrari’s ground effect era has been a failure by Ferrari’s own standards, but that’s very different from calling it a failure in a broader sense. Ferrari were literally a handful of points away from a WCC in 2024; that’s falling short of expectations, not failure.

They started 2022 strong but then TD39 hit. The rest of 2022 went sideways following TD-39 and 2023 started off in the wrong direction with correlation and platform issues. By 2024, they’d largely stabilized things, had a genuinely competitive car, and executed well over a full season (for the most part ... the technical issues from Barcelona through Zandvoort were problematic). Then 2025 drifted again, seemingly as a result of a fundamental issue regarding suspension/mechanical platform vis-a-vis ride height. It was not a straight decline but instead a series of technical course corrections, some handled successfully and some not.

Red Bull might be the best example of how narrative noise is largely meaningless. They were very good in 2022, genuinely unbeatable in 2023, then slipped to being the third or fourth-fastest car for large parts of 2024. In 2025 they were all over the map, sometimes the fourth-fastest car, sometimes the fastest, entirely dependent on technical development, upgrades, and setup direction. During this past season, there was nonstop noise around Red Bull: rumors about Verstappen leaving, talk about Newey’s departure and how much it had weakened them, questions about Horner and the team’s internal culture, the leadership change with Mekies taking over, the ongoing political tension between the Thai and Austrian sides of ownership.

People were saying the exact same thing then that they’re now saying about Ferrari: Red Bull were imploding, it was over. And yet, despite all of that swirling, Verstappen came within a couple of points of winning the WDC late in 2025. Not because the noise went away, not because everyone suddenly got along, but because they found performance; once they unlocked the right technical direction/setup window, the results quickly followed.

McLaren fits the same mold from the opposite direction. They were nowhere in 2022 and genuinely awful at the start of 2023. Midway through that season they overhauled the car, brought significant upgrades, fixed major correlation issues, and completely transformed their performance. Within a short span they were championship contenders: WCC in 2024, and WCC/WDC in 2025. If you’d applied this same implosion logic to McLaren heading into the 2023 season, it would’ve been proven wrong within a handful of months.

None of this is to say that sustained poor performance wouldn’t eventually create real problems. But that’s very different from the claim that Ferrari must start the 2026 regulations strongly or they will inevitably implode. We have multiple examples of teams unlocking significant performance with the right technical interventions within a given season. The idea that a slow start in the first few races under these new regulations means Ferrari (or any given team) is permanently compromised for the rest of the season, just isn’t true. Modern F1 is driven by technical prowess and simulation/wind tunnel correlation; when those things line up, performance can swing quickly.

Nice to see some users here with a sense of reality. People are so hot headed and short sighted.
Ferrari indeed were a close second for many parts of the last few years. This is in general a very good performance.
But some people can not handle anything other than winning or dominating.
I think the potential is there in the current Ferrari team, and historically, if they do not have a deeply baked in fault somewhere in the design, they will be still around the top in 2026 too.
But for mistakes, 2026 is the best/worst year since a long time. So it will be super interesting!