2026 Scuderia Ferrari HP F1 Team

[AR3-GP]

1. I picked Austria because its a type of track that would really punish a weak PU. But in Silverstone as well, Ferrari were struggling in the straights. They just came up with a very good deployment strategy that negated some of that. Mercedes copied it, RedBull did not, so it's hard to directly compare.

There is no specific track that punishes a weak PU when you are only measuring time on straight. If you want to discuss an ICE specifically, that's another discussion. My point is that time on straight analysis is closely linked to the overall PU performance and more broadly the overall PU performance is what we see on the track, not the ICE.

2. A little bit more to unpack here.

Firstly, I wasn't looking at the top speeds. I guess it's fairly easy to see that the Ferrari line is lower than the others (when they follow a similar deployment strategy) across the entire straight and not just at the top end. There is no way for the average to turn out higher when you're slower all the way through.

I'm not sure that I said anything to disagree with that? I'm not saying Ferrari is actually faster than RB or Merc on the straights. Just that a) Austria is outliar, and b) time on straight will make things closer than only looking at top speed. This matters because laptime comes from "time on straight + time in corners", not "top speed + time in corners".

Secondly, any team can do what you say with regards to deployment, but they would be stupid to do so because the fastest way through the straights, 99/100, will be to deploy as much as you can early on to boost acceleration rather than wait to build up speed and then accelerate to a higher top speed. So there's no reason for any team not to deploy at the beginning of the straights

Verstappen just said this in Madrid:

Max: "In the last sector, we just don't have the correct deployment. We couldn't change that, we're too limited in our software, and yeah, that holds us back a little."

"You just don't have battery where you'd want the battery."

So every manufacturer can't just do what others are doing. We know for example that only Mercedes PU can do the end of lap energy dump/ERS shutoff gimmick.

. Even the worse cars that you mentioned, would only be slightly limited at the beginning of the traction zone. As soon as they're through the corner, even if they're not full throttle, it doesn't make sense to delay deployment, because they would be losing even more time. Bad exit from bad traction + on top of that you want to delay deployment as well? Disaster for laptime.

We're only talking tenths of a second delays in going full power earlier between a top team and back markers, not seconds. Ultimately that's part of why the slow cars are extra slow this year. They may choose to protect the rear tires more around a lap because they don't have as much downforce. Overheating the rear tires can make you slower in the corners. Each constructor has to find the balance if they have the same PU. Alpine might not get the maximum out of the A526 deploying exactly like Mercedes.

Thirdly, can you please link the source. I need to know more about the methodology to make a proper comment on those numbers. Do they (the person who did this) explain how they got the numbers? What is considered a straight? At which point do they start to count the time and when do they end it? Is there any aggregation going on and if yes what kind?

https://i.postimg.cc/pLSB8M89/image.png

Okay I see the issue. I made a mistake. The author only used 5 circuits. Still seems decent enough to me.

1. Miami
2. Austria
3. Silverstone
4. Spa
5. Monza

https://x.com/Laptime_f1/status/2100323275553276357

[Emag]

1. I picked Austria because its a type of track that would really punish a weak PU. But in Silverstone as well, Ferrari were struggling in the straights. They just came up with a very good deployment strategy that negated some of that. Mercedes copied it, RedBull did not, so it's hard to directly compare.

There is no specific track that punishes a weak PU when you are only measuring time on straight. If you want to discuss an ICE specifically, that's another discussion. My point is that time on straight analysis is closely linked to the overall PU performance and more broadly the overall PU performance is what we see on the track, not the ICE.

2. A little bit more to unpack here.

Firstly, I wasn't looking at the top speeds. I guess it's fairly easy to see that the Ferrari line is lower than the others (when they follow a similar deployment strategy) across the entire straight and not just at the top end. There is no way for the average to turn out higher when you're slower all the way through.

I'm not sure that I said anything to disagree with that?

Secondly, any team can do what you say with regards to deployment, but they would be stupid to do so because the fastest way through the straights, 99/100, will be to deploy as much as you can early on to boost acceleration rather than wait to build up speed and then accelerate to a higher top speed. So there's no reason for any team not to deploy at the beginning of the straights

Verstappen just said this in Madrid:

Max: "In the last sector, we just don't have the correct deployment. We couldn't change that, we're too limited in our software, and yeah, that holds us back a little."

"You just don't have battery where you'd want the battery."

So every manufacturer can't just do what others are doing. We know for example that only Mercedes PU can do the end of lap energy dump/ERS shutoff gimmick.

. Even the worse cars that you mentioned, would only be slightly limited at the beginning of the traction zone. As soon as they're through the corner, even if they're not full throttle, it doesn't make sense to delay deployment, because they would be losing even more time. Bad exit from bad traction + on top of that you want to delay deployment as well? Disaster for laptime.

We're only talking tenths of a second delays in going full power earlier between a top team and back markers, not seconds. Ultimately that's part of why the slow cars are extra slow this year. They may choose to protect the rear tires more around a lap because they don't have as much downforce. Overheating the rear tires can make you slower in the corners. Each constructor has to find the balance if they have the same PU. Alpine might not get the maximum out of the A526 deploying exactly like Mercedes.

Thirdly, can you please link the source. I need to know more about the methodology to make a proper comment on those numbers. Do they (the person who did this) explain how they got the numbers? What is considered a straight? At which point do they start to count the time and when do they end it? Is there any aggregation going on and if yes what kind?

https://i.postimg.cc/pLSB8M89/image.png

Okay I see the issue. I made a mistake. The author only used 5 circuits. Still seems decent enough to me.

1. Miami
2. Austria
3. Silverstone
4. Spa
5. Monza

https://x.com/Laptime_f1/status/2100323275553276357

Interesting arbitrary choice of 5 tracks, but unfortunately he doesn't explain his methodology. You can get wildly different charts depending on your choices, trust me. Been working on this and other things throughout the last couple of days. No matter though. I am more "weirded" out by McLaren being so good rather than Ferrari and RedBull being so close. I don't remember McLaren ever showing some signs of extreme acceleration advantage that would negate their top-speed disadvantage for these numbers to make sense.

I am still polishing my own version, I'll come back tomorrow afternoon when I expect to be done with it, but I don't believe McLaren will jump that high in the rankings when I am done with the pipeline.

[AR3-GP]

Interesting arbitrary choice of 5 tracks, but unfortunately he doesn't explain his methodology. You can get wildly different charts depending on your choices, trust me. Been working on this and other things throughout the last couple of days. No matter though. I am more "weirded" out by McLaren being so good rather than Ferrari and RedBull being so close. I don't remember McLaren ever showing some signs of extreme acceleration advantage that would negate their top-speed disadvantage for these numbers to make sense.

I am still polishing my own version, I'll come back tomorrow afternoon when I expect to be done with it, but I don't believe McLaren will jump that high in the rankings when I am done with the pipeline.

Mclaren isn't "so good". They are 0.5% behind Mercedes in that analysis.

but top speed itself is not a measure of a car's ability to generate a laptime. So what is the relevance? We know that Mclaren have shorter gear ratios than any other team. That means they do accelerate faster in the early part of the straight where it's more valuable to a lap time to do so. If your data doesn't actually show that, then it means that you might need to change something or the acceleration calculations based on the lower quality fastf1 stuff isn't going to be precise enough to show it. I don't know what else to say. Same power and shorter gears cause more acceleration in start of straight.

[Emag]

Interesting arbitrary choice of 5 tracks, but unfortunately he doesn't explain his methodology. You can get wildly different charts depending on your choices, trust me. Been working on this and other things throughout the last couple of days. No matter though. I am more "weirded" out by McLaren being so good rather than Ferrari and RedBull being so close. I don't remember McLaren ever showing some signs of extreme acceleration advantage that would negate their top-speed disadvantage for these numbers to make sense.

I am still polishing my own version, I'll come back tomorrow afternoon when I expect to be done with it, but I don't believe McLaren will jump that high in the rankings when I am done with the pipeline.

Mclaren isn't "so good". They are 0.5% behind Mercedes in that analysis.

but top speed itself is not a measure of a car's ability to generate a laptime. So what is the relevance? We know that Mclaren have shorter gear ratios than any other team, so yes they do accelerate faster in the early part of the straight where it's more valuable to a laptime to do so. If your data doesn't actually show that, then it means that you might need to change something. I don't know what else to say. Same power and shorter gears cause more acceleration.

Top speed is a different topic and there isn't necessarily any strong correlation between top speed and lap time, so I don't have much to say about using it.

Well don't take my words in such an absolute stance. When I say top speed, I am not literally saying the single data point where the highest speed in a straight is achieved. My point is that McLaren haven't had traces that suggest "good" average time in the straights. Not even against some midfield teams, let alone Mercedes. I don't see how that graph makes sense. McLaren has not been the second best team in the straights throughout this season.

And no, my pipeline is not perfect, but the math *should* be good. I will double check it tomorrow. The main thing I was working on is how to properly classify a straight and a corner.

[deadhead]

The Ferrari ICE is lacking in power and their battery deployment/recharge isn’t as efficient as Mercedes.

Hasn’t that been clear so far this season?

[AR3-GP]

The Ferrari ICE is lacking in power and their battery deployment/recharge isn’t as efficient as Mercedes.

Hasn’t that been clear so far this season?

Yes but that's not the full story. It's not 100% of the straight-line deficit. As I have said before, Mercedes scrapped their FTM development because it didn't gain enough downforce for the amount of power they lost. Red Bull removed their FTM in Monza. And these Merc/RB FTM are not even half of what the Ferrari system is.

[PlatinumZealot]

Is anyone counting the mechanical DNFs?

Hamilton has 1 mechanical DNF in 38 races for Scuderia Ferrari

Wasn't his DNF because he hit the wall a few laps before???
With the rear tyres he had a contact, as he reported on the radio, then developed a rear brake failure...

No. It was internal brake components on the rear of the car.

[PlatinumZealot]

The Ferrari ICE is lacking in power and their battery deployment/recharge isn’t as efficient as Mercedes.

Hasn’t that been clear so far this season?

Yes but that's not the full story. It's not 100% of the straight-line deficit. As I have said before, Mercedes scrapped their FTM development because it didn't gain enough downforce for the amount of power they lost. Red Bull removed their FTM in Monza. And these Merc/RB FTM are not even half of what the Ferrari system is.

Those other cars were not designed with the FTM as a key part of the aerodynamics ans exhaust package so of course they're not going to have a big benefit from it.

You can only conclude that tacked on FTM is not great at low drag tracks for whatever reason (could be aero or engine).

[mzso]

Is anyone counting the mechanical DNFs?

Hamilton has 1 mechanical DNF in 38 races for Scuderia Ferrari

Wasn't his DNF because he hit the wall a few laps before???
With the rear tyres he had a contact, as he reported on the radio, then developed a rear brake failure...

It's possible that the brake system was damaged. We'll never know for sure.

[sucof]

Some try to say on this forum that Ferrari is slower on the straights because they went for more downforce.
Now this is complete BS, as you can see in every telemetry, they do not have nowhere near as much speed benefit in the corners or under breaking as they loose on the straights. So this is just debunked.
Just as their new engine debunks this too, since you can clearly see their difference in straights are a lot less, sometimes halved, while the cornering speeds are still unchanged, similar to other top speeds.

One of these has nothing to do with the other. Just because they have extra downforce, doesn't mean that they've done enough with it to bridge the PU gap to Mercedes. I didn't say that was the case. They have just extracted more from it than others and the straight-line loss was made up for compared to an SF26 without FTM, otherwise it wouldn't be on the car. That's why Mercedes removed their own in Madrid and that's why Red Bull removed there's in Monza.

Ferrari's straight-line deficit is not all because of aero/FTM. Only some of it is and that is my point. Many have attributed the gap entirely to the PU and brought hysterical numbers to this thread. The current ADUO 2 spec is probably as effective as the RBPT as an overall PU when you look at time on straight analysis of the pre-ADUO PU and the stated gains of the ADUO 2 engine. They still have a gap to Mercedes, like everyone else. Some of it caused by the aero/FTM concept, and the rest by the PU not being good enough.

Well I did not expect at all that you will understand my message, neither the earlier one.
Have fun trying to dominate this forum, (for no apparent reason), I have the feeling lots of good folks already left.

[deadhead]

The Ferrari ICE is lacking in power and their battery deployment/recharge isn’t as efficient as Mercedes.

Hasn’t that been clear so far this season?

Yes but that's not the full story. It's not 100% of the straight-line deficit. As I have said before, Mercedes scrapped their FTM development because it didn't gain enough downforce for the amount of power they lost. Red Bull removed their FTM in Monza. And these Merc/RB FTM are not even half of what the Ferrari system is.

Of course it’s not 100% of the straight line deficit but it’s a significant hindrance to the overall performance of the car

[f1316]

Two points:

1) Austria is a high-altitude outlier. The data is averaged from Rd4 to Rd13. With such a massive data set (Rd4 to Rd13), the average is much more representative than the outlier. Ferrari experienced a circuit specific PU degradation in Austria related to smaller turbo and high altitude.

2) You're showing plots that illustrate top speed, not "time on straight". Top speed can be completely uncorrelated with power in this ruleset (that's why Haas and Cadillac are always randomly at the top of the speed traps despite 3rd best PU). Any team can delay the deployment to the end of the straight to get a higher top speed at the expense of worse acceleration. Weak cars like Haas and Cadillac don't have the grip to use full 1000hp from low speed, so they are more likely to defer some of the electrical deployment to higher speed range where it can be used (but at a lower efficiency) instead of just generating wheel spin at low speed which is 100% energy loss. Time on straight is a far more accurate metric when comparing PUs and there is a reason why the Mercedes powered teams are clustering at the top, followed by RBPT, followed closely by pre-ADUO Ferrari. Because that's the actual PU pecking order.

The nice thing about a time on straight analysis is that it completely removes the straight specific deployment differences because time on straight is a cumulative property. By the end of the lap, everyone has used all of the energy allowed across all of straights. Deployment differences are effectively normalized.

1. I picked Austria because its a type of track that would really punish a weak PU. But in Silverstone as well, Ferrari were struggling in the straights. They just came up with a very good deployment strategy that negated some of that. Mercedes copied it, RedBull did not, so it's hard to directly compare.

2. A little bit more to unpack here.

Firstly, I wasn't looking at the top speeds. I guess it's fairly easy to see that the Ferrari line is lower than the others (when they follow a similar deployment strategy) across the entire straight and not just at the top end. There is no way for the average to turn out higher when you're slower all the way through.

Secondly, any team can do what you say with regards to deployment, but they would be stupid to do so because the fastest way through the straights, 99/100, will be to deploy as much as you can early on to boost acceleration rather than wait to build up speed and then accelerate to a higher top speed. So there's no reason for any team not to deploy at the beginning of the straights. Even the worse cars that you mentioned, would only be slightly limited at the beginning of the traction zone. As soon as they're through the corner, even if they're not full throttle, it doesn't make sense to delay deployment, because they would be losing even more time. Bad exit from bad traction + on top of that you want to delay deployment as well? Disaster for laptime. And it's mostly true this season where they have limited deployment available and it's very common for them to run out of battery between straights. You can think about it intuitively as well. If you add 20 kmh at the beginning of the straight, you benefit from that all the way through the straight. If you add it in the middle or towards the end, you don't benefit that much from it before you start breaking.

Thirdly, can you please link the source. I need to know more about the methodology to make a proper comment on those numbers. Do they (the person who did this) explain how they got the numbers? What is considered a straight? At which point do they start to count the time and when do they end it? Is there any aggregation going on and if yes what kind?

Now coincidentally, I was working on something like this for f1insightshub. I haven't made it public yet, so I had to spin up the local server to get the charts, but they're completely different from what you've shown here. You can see my methodology down there at the bottom.

https://i.postimg.cc/pLSB8M89/image.png

Looking at Williams here, it also shows how possible it is to mess up having the best engine (ie how much impact the chassis has)