2026 Scuderia Ferrari HP F1 Team

[Peter Ian Staker]

Sounds way too gloomy. Even if we assume Mercedes, RedBull and McLaren are ahead, for Ferrari to miss Q3, they have to be in the bottom 6 of the grid. Remove haas and cadillac, because there is no way Ferrari has a car that is worse than their smaller customers, that leaves Williams, Alpine, Racing Bull and Audi.

Unless there has been a monumental f*ck up, I don’t see how Ferrari ends up slower than these teams.

Williams and Alpine will likely have a better engine than Ferrari so I wouldn't be so sure. Also you completely forgot about Aston, even if their Honda engine isn't the best they should have a good chassis to compensate somewhat.

I fear a 2014 scenario could turn a lot worse for Ferrari this time around just because the grid is a lot deeper than it was back then.

[deadhead]

Vassuer will try to spin the usual “potential” propaganda with upgrades on the way

[sucof]

Guys, no one here shall have any feelings regarding their performance in 2026, because no one knows nothing.
Besides, if you scroll other teams topics, they all have rumours about them having problems...
So just wait at least next week, then at least the rumours might have some basis, or some little signs might be visible.

[Emag]

Sounds way too gloomy. Even if we assume Mercedes, RedBull and McLaren are ahead, for Ferrari to miss Q3, they have to be in the bottom 6 of the grid. Remove haas and cadillac, because there is no way Ferrari has a car that is worse than their smaller customers, that leaves Williams, Alpine, Racing Bull and Audi.

Unless there has been a monumental f*ck up, I don’t see how Ferrari ends up slower than these teams.

Williams and Alpine will likely have a better engine than Ferrari so I wouldn't be so sure. Also you completely forgot about Aston, even if their Honda engine isn't the best they should have a good chassis to compensate somewhat.

I fear a 2014 scenario could turn a lot worse for Ferrari this time around just because the grid is a lot deeper than it was back then.

I was thinking on the lower end of the grid and assumed 9-10 for Ferrari as the worst case scenario, so in this case Aston would be with the first group.

As for that second bit, given what we know from some people (Hodgkinson comments in particular), it doesn’t seem like the difference between power units will be huge, so a repeat of 2014 *should not happen.

And for all their improvements, I personally don’t think Williams is at a level where they can challenge the top spots yet. We liked to meme a lot last year, but look at the points difference between Ferrari and Williams last year.

Things would have to go very wrong for Ferrari to be slower than them.

[Luscion]

I'll wait until testing on what to believe, autoracer themselves said it's just rumors and on the Livestream before this one said they have no actual data to confirm Ferrari's progress because they're being very secretive. But where theres smoke..

[Badger]

In the meantime, Cadillac chief Lowdon, whose cars will be powered by Ferrari for the initial years, has insisted they have been given a “fully legal engine”.

“What I’m very confident and happy about is we have a fully legal engine,” he told Sky Sports.

“With these engines, the combustion is not allowed to take place at a compression ratio above 16 to 1.

“Without going into too many details, we know that Ferrari have completely followed the rules where that stands. That gives us a lot of confidence.

“In terms of performance, we work and support our power unit partner to the absolute maximum. We’re very happy with the relationship.

“I can’t really talk for other people’s power units or how they’ve interpreted the regulation. But to me, it’s extremely clear it’s there in black and white.”

https://www.planetf1.com/news/cadillac- ... ia-meeting

All this posturing makes me think something is definitely going on behind the scenes with this compression stuff. Audi was also doing it at their launch.

[wowgr8]

I'll wait until testing on what to believe, autoracer themselves said it's just rumors and on the Livestream before this one said they have no actual data to confirm Ferrari's progress because they're being very secretive. But where theres smoke..

Mark Hughes (I think) put out that article last year claiming one engine manufacturer was having issues with their fuel choice, now AR say the fuel choice has complications, there's definitely smoke, all that's left up in the air is how much destruction the fire has caused

[bananapeel23]

I'll wait until testing on what to believe, autoracer themselves said it's just rumors and on the Livestream before this one said they have no actual data to confirm Ferrari's progress because they're being very secretive. But where theres smoke..

On the contrary you could say that when Ferrari is loud, it usually fails to deliver on the expectations it sets. Them being quiet could just as well signal a very good car as a bad one.

In the recent years they have been especially loud and confident in 2019, 2020, 2023 and 2025. The years where they beat expectations were 2021 (the car was less bad than expected, not good), 2022 and 2024. The 2020, 2023 and 2025 cars were monumental failures, the 2019 car was not as good as expected, albeit good enough to win at least 5 races, when accounting for the robberies in Bahrain and Canada.

I'd argue that silence from Ferrari is usually a good sign, not a bad one. This year might be different though, since it seems more like quiet pessimism than quiet confidence, but it's pretty difficult to say with so little information to go on. The pessimism does appear to come mostly from the media, rather than Ferrari themselves. The pessimism seems to mostly revolve around the assumption that the Mercedes engine will be dominant, while the Ferrari engine will be bad. On the chassis/aero side we really know nothing at all and I know of no news about it.

We really know nothing about the engines though. If the compression ratio trick does turn out to be worth 15 horsepower, that does not mean that Ferrari has a 15 horsepower deficit. They had the best ICE in 2022-2025, supposedly due to better combustion tech. It is conceivable that their fuel/combustion tech is good enough to close most or all of the compression ratio deficit. Ferrari is also supposedly running a different fuel type, likely less dense but perhaps better in other respects, it could easily prove a huge benefit. I suspect Ferrari will have a 15 horsepower deficit at most. In that case aero could easily make up for a 3 tenth engine deficit, especially in a new set of aero regs. It's an uphill battle, but the dominant team has had 3 tenths on the competition from aero alone for most of the last regulation set.

[ScuderiaLeo]

I'll wait until testing on what to believe, autoracer themselves said it's just rumors and on the Livestream before this one said they have no actual data to confirm Ferrari's progress because they're being very secretive. But where theres smoke..

Mark Hughes (I think) put out that article last year claiming one engine manufacturer was having issues with their fuel choice, now AR say the fuel choice has complications, there's definitely smoke, all that's left up in the air is how much destruction the fire has caused

Where did AR talk about the fuel choice definitively? In an article?

[ScuderiaLeo]

I'll wait until testing on what to believe, autoracer themselves said it's just rumors and on the Livestream before this one said they have no actual data to confirm Ferrari's progress because they're being very secretive. But where theres smoke..

One thing AR always reiterates even during their streams is that even they don't know how things will compare. They can make guesses (like Merc and Alpine will start strong) but who knows really. I remember all the hype for Merc before 2022 too.

I think Ferrari's biggest worry is still in season development. They never had a chance to show improvement there in 2025.

[Luscion]

I'll wait until testing on what to believe, autoracer themselves said it's just rumors and on the Livestream before this one said they have no actual data to confirm Ferrari's progress because they're being very secretive. But where theres smoke..

Mark Hughes (I think) put out that article last year claiming one engine manufacturer was having issues with their fuel choice, now AR say the fuel choice has complications, there's definitely smoke, all that's left up in the air is how much destruction the fire has caused

Where did AR talk about the fuel choice definitively? In an article?

Yea they said ferrari were experiencing differences in batches where some would give great performance and some not so much but they mostly got it sorted out, their website seems to be down rn but i'll quote the article when its fixed. Then there was the report of the fia allowing teams to not have to use the new fuel mixtures during testing because the complexity has given some fuel suppliers issues, iirc ferrari werent one of them requesting it

[dren]

Mark Hughes (I think) put out that article last year claiming one engine manufacturer was having issues with their fuel choice, now AR say the fuel choice has complications, there's definitely smoke, all that's left up in the air is how much destruction the fire has caused

Where did AR talk about the fuel choice definitively? In an article?

Yea they said ferrari were experiencing differences in batches where some would give great performance and some not so much but they mostly got it sorted out, their website seems to be down rn but i'll quote the article when its fixed. Then there was the report of the fia allowing teams to not have to use the new fuel mixtures during testing because the complexity have give some fuel suppliers issues, iirc ferrari werent one of them requesting it

Surely it's due to the ridiculously high cost of the synth fuels?

[Luscion]

Where did AR talk about the fuel choice definitively? In an article?

Yea they said ferrari were experiencing differences in batches where some would give great performance and some not so much but they mostly got it sorted out, their website seems to be down rn but i'll quote the article when its fixed. Then there was the report of the fia allowing teams to not have to use the new fuel mixtures during testing because the complexity have give some fuel suppliers issues, iirc ferrari werent one of them requesting it

Surely it's due to the ridiculously high cost of the synth fuels?

Could be, AMuS wrote on it too https://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/for ... ologation/

Experts expect the quality of gasoline to become a real performance factor. This is where close cooperation between engine engineers and chemists is important in order to tailor the mixtures specifically to the needs of the new power units. The denser the energy, the less fuel needs to be taken on board at the start of a race. Less weight is known to mean more speed.

Biomass-based gasoline also does not atomize as well as fossil fuels. Knock resistance is also an important factor. The molecular chains must not burn too slowly or too quickly or contain any impurities during high compression in the cylinder. So a good fuel can become a real competitive advantage.

The complexity of the task appears to have caught some fuel suppliers off guard. They have asked the FIA's rule enforcement officers for an exception so that they are not forced to use fully homologated gasoline blends during testing. As the world governing body confirmed to auto motor und sport, this request was granted and the postponement was approved.

Accordingly, fuel mixtures that are not yet officially certified may now be used outside of race weekends. Theoretically, the engines could also be powered by fossil fuels during the test drives. The world governing body wants to give fuel suppliers enough time to develop a mature fuel by the start of the season and have it homologated in time.

No one wanted to confirm rumors that gasoline manufacturers were simply unable to make the new biofuel available in sufficient quantities in time for the test drives. Another theory for introducing the exemption is that the homologation process is so lengthy and complicated that the FIA experts simply could not cope with removing all the fuel mixtures in time.

[dialtone]

That amus article doesn’t make much sense though. Speaks about the issues in biomass fuels but Ferrari didn’t ask for the extension and they are the only team with Biomass. So what gives?

I think they are confusing biomass with synthetic fuel or somehow treating them the same?

[dren]

I read/heard that it's like $100s per liter of fuel. It makes no sense to piss all of that away for testing. Plus, synth producers are probably having issues synthesizing enough for an entire season.