2026 Scuderia Ferrari HP F1 Team

[LM10]

The onboard of Antonelli's lap made it look way more planted than the Ferrari as well. That's probably more worrying from my perspective. Both Russell and Antonelli have also generally been pretty open with praise about their car's handling.

Can as well simply be explained by setup. Mercedes might have worked out their setup already or generally be an easy to setup car and Ferrari might not be (for now).
I’d even argue that it’s not a bad sign for Ferrari to be fast while still having some balance issues and once they’re solved, they might gain even more pace.

Been my experience observing F1 car behavior is that this sort of stuff tends to be more fundamental. Baseline setup through the testing and work in simulator and whatnot should already be fair enough to represent the car to some reasonable degree. It's not very common for a car to go from having some clear handling issues to totally clearing them up via setup changes unless they were like totally out of the tire window or something. You're usually fighting an uphill battle of compromises.

It is still early days though, sure. New parts, different track characteristics, different conditions(Kimi's lap was on Day 3, while Leclerc's was Day 2) in combination with playing more with setup and understanding the car better can certainly make a difference to this stuff.

Well then except Mercedes all other cars have fundamental balance problems as only the Mercedes seemed like it was on rails at times.

I'd not go to such lengths and instead rather think of issues in the very early phase of a completely new car in a completely new regulation set with probably biggest changes we've seen so far.
All teams will have a very steep learning curve in the next months and I'm sure the cars will behave better and better from race weekend to race weekend. Every single upgrade will make a big impact on car performance.

[dans79]

[dialtone]

Turns out Fred is really an operations guy.

Since he joined every single operation of the team has become more predictable and reliable, from pit stops, to strategy to getting this stuff ready for the season. Reliability of this engine is already very high. First team to figure out the turbo spooling on start issue. Tip of the hat to him.

[sucof]

The "I'll move to Aston Martin if Ferrari can't win" play doesn't ring so loud with their current state/engine.

I have heard that Schumacher might leave Ferrari to Mercedes...

[sucof]

I can't understand how anybody can really think Ferrari is the best after a test where the fastest lap was Mercedes by more than half a second, and in the race simulations the Mercedes was faster by a significant margin as well. The only thing Ferrari did clearly better than Merc was total distance.

The onboard of Antonelli's lap made it look way more planted than the Ferrari as well. That's probably more worrying from my perspective. Both Russell and Antonelli have also generally been pretty open with praise about their car's handling.

Can as well simply be explained by setup. Mercedes might have worked out their setup already or generally be an easy to setup car and Ferrari might not be (for now).
I’d even argue that it’s not a bad sign for Ferrari to be fast while still having some balance issues and once they’re solved, they might gain even more pace.

Well, also think about how much less grip they have in Bahrain than usual. It is very much on the colder side. And the downforce will also rise, so if their problem is accelerating out of corners, warmer tracks, slightly improved downforce will be just enough. Meaning, they will have some extra efficiency accelerating.

Additionally, the news is about them having a smaller turbo, that could mean they get faster more torque, which supports this theory.

And, maths says you gain laptime by being faster earlier on a straight, than faster at the end.

[jambuka]

Is is true that even though Ferrari tested with the new fuel, it's still not the exact one they will use for the season ? As in, though it's still new fuel and approved, it is of a bit lesser quality than the actual one.

[AR3-GP]

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[dialtone]

Is is true that even though Ferrari tested with the new fuel, it's still not the exact one they will use for the season ? As in, though it's still new fuel and approved, it is of a bit lesser quality than the actual one.

AutoRacer said they used approved fuel for Thursday and Friday last week.

[sunny1304r]

Ferrari brings new power unit and aerodynamic updates to F1 2026 Bahrain test

[PlatinumZealot]

The "I'll move to Aston Martin if Ferrari can't win" play doesn't ring so loud with their current state/engine.

How trifling it would be if Ferrari gives Charles a car that can win races each year but still not good enough to win championship!

[johnnycesup]

Ferrari brings new power unit and aerodynamic updates to F1 2026 Bahrain test

New but not different, so no real news there. I would imagine at least some of their competitors will be performing teardowns for the PUs and gearboxes used last week.

[ScuderiaLeo]

They changed their minds I guess

[ryaan2904]

Any trackside pictures yet?

[Fakepivot]

so they opened up a new air vent which look similar to last year,
Edit:- Oo they also have a new small spoiler kind of thing in front of exhaust

[organic]

Apparently the diffuser winglet / latest Ferrari update could be worth a lot and they deliberately hid this longer than anything else