Fifth and eighth place were all Ferrari could manage at the Austrian Grand Prix, with Lewis Hamilton finishing P5 and Charles Leclerc crossing the line in eighth. It was a race that fell well short of the team’s impressive performance in Barcelona, although the seven-time world champion was able to extract slightly more from the SF-26 than his teammate, who endured a particularly difficult afternoon.
Ferrari’s weekend was marked by constant highs and lows. Throughout the event, the team introduced another step in its upgrade package and continued refining the setup in an effort to arrive fully prepared for Sunday’s race. However, the characteristics of the Red Bull Ring once again exposed the SF-26’s biggest weakness.
Team Principal Fred Vasseur later admitted that Ferrari had made several errors in judgement during the race. While the lack of engine performance undoubtedly played a role, the team’s strategic execution also proved costly. Ferrari focused almost entirely on racing Mercedes while paying too little attention to other rivals such as Red Bull, which steadily moved into contention.
Austrian GP: Charles Leclerc searching for the right balance
Charles Leclerc himself supported that assessment after the race. The Monegasque explained that, beyond the car’s outright lack of performance, Ferrari’s race management and overall pace were major contributors to the disappointing result. From both a strategic and reactive standpoint, the Scuderia failed to deliver a flawless execution.
Speaking to Sky Sport F1, Charles Leclerc first addressed Ferrari’s performance gap to Mercedes, describing it as recoverable, but only with significant effort.
“At the moment we’re really struggling with the engine. In every close battle I had today, whether against the Red Bulls or the Mercedes-powered cars, there was unfortunately very little I could do on the straights.”
He then added: “We have to be honest, though. Today it wasn’t all down to the engine. We simply didn’t have the race pace, especially on my side of the garage, although I think as a team we struggled much more than we did last week in Barcelona. I struggled even more than my teammate. At difficult moments like this, all I can do is stay calm, keep my head down, continue working hard with the engineers and try to find the right balance with this car. It was definitely a very difficult day for me.”
Lewis Hamilton looks beyond Austria
Ferrari introduced further upgrades for the Austrian Grand Prix, including its first ADUO development within the initial 2% allowance permitted by the FIA. However, it was already clear that the benefits would not be immediate, particularly as Mercedes also introduced its own developments. Hamilton acknowledged that reality, admitting that meaningful progress will take time.
“I think the gap is really, really big. Honestly, I don’t know if it can be completely recovered within a single season. It takes months and months of work on the dyno to develop components, test their reliability and introduce the necessary changes, and I don’t have any precise information about the factory’s timeline.”
He concluded: “I believe we’ll be able to make another step forward at some point later in the year, but it will happen further into the season. Until then, we have several very challenging races ahead of us. Hopefully we’ll arrive at circuits with characteristics that suit us better, with more corners and fewer long straights. When I think about the next race at Silverstone, it certainly won’t be easy. There are plenty of long straights there as well. It’s usually a circuit where I perform well, but the same issue will appear again at the end of every straight.”
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