Charles Leclerc has inadvertently revealed which Ferrari ADUO power-unit specification he was using, triggering an immediate reaction from the team’s communications staff. The episode has raised a much bigger question: what competitive advantage does Ferrari actually gain by treating the name of an engine specification as highly sensitive when Formula 1 rivals can already analyse its performance on track?
The video has spread rapidly across X, and ScuderiaFans also shared it as it became increasingly viral. It is not every day that Charles Leclerc, with his characteristic openness, finds himself accidentally revealing something that Maranello apparently considers one of its most closely guarded secrets: the version of the power unit fitted to his Ferrari.
The necessary sarcasm is difficult to avoid.
Charles Leclerc reveals his Ferrari ADUO specification
Charles Leclerc speaks quite naturally about the ADUO programme. The Monegasque driver identifies which unit he is using and essentially explains that it is the same one that remained switched on for too long without adequate cooling following the accident at Parabolica.
That engine had already become an important subject during the Azerbaijan weekend, when Ferrari managed to preserve Charles Leclerc’s Monza ADUO-2 unit and avoid a Baku grid penalty.
Charles Leclerc delivers the explanation with the sort of casual tone someone might use to say they had taken their coffee without sugar. But behind him, something rather more revealing happens.
His press officer looks towards him with an expression somewhere between embarrassment and an unspoken request for him to stop. Then comes a slight shake of the head. It is a small gesture, but an extremely clear one, as though Charles Leclerc had revealed not the version of a Formula 1 power unit but the launch codes for something hidden beneath Maranello.
Once he notices the reaction, Charles Leclerc partially corrects himself and acknowledges that he may have explained concepts he was perhaps not supposed to make public.
That is where the episode becomes particularly interesting. The problem is not Charles Leclerc. Nor is it his press officer, who is presumably doing exactly the job she has been asked to perform. The more interesting question concerns the logic behind Ferrari’s policy.
What could Ferrari’s rivals really learn from the ADUO name?
Someone at Maranello evidently believes that publicly revealing exactly which power-unit specification Charles Leclerc is using could provide Ferrari’s rivals with valuable strategic information.
The obvious question is: what information?
What could Mercedes or Red Bull discover from that statement that they would not already be capable of reconstructing through their own analysis?
This is Formula 1 in 2026. Teams operate with huge engineering departments, GPS analysis, telemetry, speed traces, acceleration curves, energy-management data and detailed observations of how rival cars behave across different parts of a circuit.
The straight-line differences seen throughout the Azerbaijan weekend were already visible through Ferrari’s Baku work on power deployment and SF-26 set-up, regardless of whether anybody publicly identified the engine specification by name.
Mercedes, Red Bull or any other competitor does not need to wait for Charles Leclerc to stand in front of a camera and say “ADUO” before beginning to understand what configuration Ferrari is using.
If a power unit produces certain performance figures, behaves differently under particular conditions, reaches certain speeds and displays identifiable patterns of energy deployment, rival engineers can reconstruct a substantial amount of information without Ferrari ever confirming the technical label attached to the unit.
The Ferrari secret everybody can already see on track
Ferrari can put a lock around the term ADUO-2. It can remove the designation from official communications. It can ask its drivers not to say it publicly. Maranello could almost create a secret room containing a folder marked “TOP SECRET – DO NOT TELL ANYONE”.
Eventually, however, the car has to go onto the circuit.
That is where the secrecy becomes much less useful.
The power unit has to operate. Its operation produces performance. Performance produces data, and those data create analysis. Rival teams then use that analysis to understand precisely the kind of information Ferrari might believe it can protect through communication protocols.
The real question, therefore, is not simply whether Charles Leclerc is using ADUO-2. The real question is how fast that evolution actually is.
Ferrari does not need Charles Leclerc to provide the answer verbally. The drivers can feel it, engineers can measure it, competitors can analyse it and, above all, the stopwatch records it without paying any attention to Maranello’s communications policy.
The broader problem was also exposed by SF-26 telemetry during the Azerbaijan weekend, where Ferrari’s strengths in parts of the lap could not fully compensate for its losses elsewhere.
Ferrari has improved its power unit but the deficit remains
Even in its most recent evolution, the Ferrari power unit continues to show a deficit compared with Mercedes HPP and Red Bull PT. The rival units currently appear capable of delivering greater overall performance, helped by more effective integration between the internal-combustion engine, turbocharger and electrical component.
Ferrari has made progress. Denying that would be incorrect.
But making progress is not the same thing as eliminating the gap. When Mercedes and Red Bull are the reference points, preventing Charles Leclerc from saying “ADUO 1, 2, 3 or 1000” does not change what happens when the Ferrari spends more time covering a straight.
Those differences can also be examined through the ScuderiaFans F1 Top Speed Comparison, where recorded straight-line performance provides far more useful information than the name attached to an engine specification.
The real Ferrari secret is not the ADUO label
Ferrari has already used the two ADUO development tokens available to it during the current season. The first was used for the unit introduced in Austria, while the second arrived with the specification introduced at Monza.
There have been improvements, and previous technical analysis has already highlighted that some of the differences between the earlier specification and the current version are far from insignificant.
But improving does not necessarily mean catching the opposition.
That brings the discussion to a much more consequential detail. Red Bull was considered the benchmark and, as a result, did not receive any additional ADUO tokens. Mercedes, by contrast, received one on the internal-combustion side and has not yet used it.
If Mercedes were to intervene on its power unit in the near future, including a possible development around the turbo, Ferrari’s problem could potentially become even more significant. The performance spread that was particularly visible at Baku could widen further.
That would be information Ferrari might have considerably more reason to worry about than somebody publicly saying “ADUO”.
The label is the least interesting part of the story. The important part is that Ferrari has used two development opportunities to improve its power unit while one of its principal rivals still retains an opportunity to intervene.
When that remaining development is eventually used, the resulting performance will matter far more than the terminology surrounding Ferrari’s engine.
Lewis Hamilton makes Ferrari’s secrecy even harder to understand
There is another reason the reaction to Charles Leclerc’s comments appears difficult to understand: Lewis Hamilton already had the latest specification available.
That means a comparison between the two Ferrari cars could already reveal differences in one direction or another. What exactly could Mercedes discover from Charles Leclerc’s words that it could not attempt to identify by analysing Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari?
This is what makes the episode unintentionally amusing. On one side are Formula 1 teams spending enormous amounts of money analysing virtually every measurable parameter of rival cars. On the other is a communications approach that can sometimes appear to assume that simply telling a driver not to pronounce a particular technical term is enough to protect important technology.
There is a difference between secrecy and useful secrecy
None of this means Ferrari should openly explain the detailed operation of its power unit to journalists.
Protecting genuine technical information is entirely understandable. Every Formula 1 team has sensitive data, intellectual property and operating details that it has no intention of handing to competitors. Ferrari is completely justified in protecting that information and avoiding unnecessary disclosures.
But there is an enormous difference between protecting something genuinely sensitive and turning an engine designation into a “state secret” when the designation itself reveals very little to competitors already equipped to analyse the car.
Modern Formula 1 simply does not work on the assumption that information not stated publicly must therefore be unknown to other teams.
Engineers do not require a Charles Leclerc press interview. They have the data.
And the data are generally much more revealing than a press release.
Ferrari cannot censor what the stopwatch shows
In the end, the most revealing part of the viral video may not even be what Charles Leclerc says. It is what happens behind him: the slight movement of the head, the apparent message that perhaps this was something he was not supposed to reveal, and the impression that highly protected information has suddenly escaped into the public domain.
The question remains: why?
What competitive advantage is created by preventing Charles Leclerc from saying that he is using the ADUO-2 specification? What strategically valuable information is being withheld from Ferrari’s competitors? What technical mystery is genuinely protected?
The circuit eventually provides the answers.
Ferrari’s power unit has been running in public. Its strengths are visible, its weaknesses can be measured and its behaviour can be analysed. Mercedes has seen it. Red Bull has seen it. Their engineers have almost certainly studied substantially more information than the name Charles Leclerc accidentally mentioned in an interview.
The wider power-unit debate has become increasingly important for Ferrari as its technical limitations influence the potential of the entire SF-26, one of the key themes covered throughout the ScuderiaFans Ferrari technical analysis section.
Charles Leclerc’s openness is therefore hardly Ferrari’s biggest problem.
Next time, he may simply want to look behind him before mentioning certain technical terms – not because a Mercedes secret agent is hiding in a cupboard, but because he might once again meet the eyes of the person responsible for protecting information Ferrari would prefer to keep private.
The real issue is that the most important Ferrari power-unit secret is no longer which specification the team is using. It is why, after using two evolutions to improve the package, the engine still does not appear to be enough to eliminate the deficit.
And unlike the letters “ADUO”, that is something no communications protocol can hide.
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