Frederic Vasseur believes Ferrari needed to become more willing to take calculated technical risks, particularly at the beginning of a new Formula 1 regulatory cycle. The Ferrari team principal has brought to Maranello a philosophy shaped during his years at Sauber: when the rules change, waiting for other teams to provide certainty can often mean arriving too late.
There is one word in Frederic Vasseur’s comments that perhaps explains the change he has tried to introduce at Ferrari better than any other: risk. It is not an especially reassuring word inside an organisation carrying the history, expectations and pressure that surround the Scuderia. The DNA of a major team naturally tends to favour control, verification and the reduction of uncertainty. That approach is understandable, but in Formula 1 it can also become a limitation.
There comes a point in competition when being cautious simply means following others. Vasseur appears determined to prevent Ferrari from falling into that trap, and the philosophy can already be seen in the way the team has approached the development potential built into the SF-26.
How Frederic Vasseur brought the Sauber mentality to Ferrari
Frederic Vasseur learned this lesson during his years at Sauber, an organisation whose size, resources and ambitions meant it could not afford to operate in the same way as Ferrari. A smaller team inevitably has a different perception of risk. If it cannot compete through resources alone, it has to search for advantages elsewhere. It has to experiment, anticipate and interpret the regulations differently.
It is precisely that mentality that the French manager appears to have brought with him to Maranello, alongside the wider changes that have shaped Frederic Vasseur’s assessment of Ferrari’s 2026 progress.
“At Sauber we had this culture of risk. It’s strange, given that we were a Swiss team. At Ferrari, we were perhaps a little too much in our comfort zone. This year we have shown boldness in some of our choices, such as the chassis or the Macarena rear wing. There are other aspects of the car where we have shown boldness, but it is undoubtedly easier to be bold in the first year of a regulation, before entering a phase of convergence over the following seasons. When we launched the design of the Macarena rear wing, we were not so sure of ourselves, whereas next year everyone will have it.”
Ferrari needed to start taking calculated risks again
The reference to Ferrari’s comfort zone is perhaps the most interesting part of Frederic Vasseur’s statement, because he is not simply talking about one technical choice. He is talking about an attitude.
A team can become so large that it eventually becomes constrained by its own stature. Ferrari does not need to prove that it is Ferrari; its identity and history are already established. Yet that very status can encourage a form of technical conservatism. Every solution must be defensible, every decision must have a solid foundation of data and every risk must be justified.
The problem is that, in Formula 1, the data often arrives only after somebody has had the courage to explore a new path. That is the contradiction Vasseur appears determined to resolve. Ferrari does not need to become irresponsible, introducing extreme solutions without understanding their consequences. It needs to become better at distinguishing between unnecessary risk and strategic risk.
They are two completely different things. The first comes from improvisation; the second comes from a desire to anticipate rivals. That distinction becomes even more important during the first year of a new set of regulations. When every team is still trying to understand how its car behaves, there are areas in which an engineering department can choose a different direction.
There is no guarantee that the direction will be correct. But if it works, the advantage can be substantial. It is the same willingness to keep pushing that has also underpinned calls for Ferrari to remain aggressive in the 2026 Formula 1 development battle.
Why the Ferrari ‘Macarena’ rear wing represents more than one component
This is exactly why the Macarena rear wing carries a significance that goes beyond the component itself. Ferrari tried something without knowing for certain whether it would eventually become a standard solution. The Maranello team accepted the possibility that it could be wrong.
According to Frederic Vasseur, the result is that a concept which initially represented a gamble is set to become considerably more widespread.
“When we launched the design of the Macarena rear wing, we were not so sure of ourselves, whereas next year everyone will have it.”
The competitive advantage, therefore, does not necessarily come from inventing something that nobody else will ever use. It can come from having the courage to try it while rivals are still attempting to understand whether it is viable. Ferrari’s work on the rear wing forms part of a wider technical programme in which the team has continued to evaluate how aerodynamic development can unlock more from the SF-26.
Using risk to stay ahead of Formula 1’s technical convergence
This is where Frederic Vasseur’s culture of calculated risk could become particularly important for Ferrari. As the seasons progress, Formula 1 regulations naturally move towards technical convergence. Teams study their rivals’ solutions, collect data, understand which concepts work and gradually narrow the range of viable interpretations.
What begins as a technical frontier can quickly become common knowledge throughout the paddock. Once that point is reached, being genuinely bold becomes much more difficult. It is not because teams suddenly lose their courage, but because the room to be truly different has become smaller.
That is why the early phase of a regulatory cycle is the moment when a team has to be most willing to take risks. It is the period when an idea can still become a competitive advantage before evolving into a solution shared by the rest of the field.
This philosophy also helps explain why Ferrari has chosen to keep pursuing development opportunities rather than waiting for every improvement to be combined into a single package. Frederic Vasseur has already defended the Scuderia’s race-by-race approach to SF-26 development.
Ferrari wants to arrive first rather than wait for validation
For too long, Ferrari’s problem was often the opposite: reaching a solution only after it had already been validated elsewhere in the paddock. The challenge, therefore, is not simply to build a fast Formula 1 car. It is to create a technical structure with enough confidence to be temporarily imperfect if that provides an opportunity to become better before its rivals.
That represents a major cultural difference. Frederic Vasseur appears to understand it and, more importantly, seems intent on turning it into a working method.
His experience at Sauber taught him that when a team cannot afford to have everything, it must at least try to see something before everybody else does. Ferrari faces a different problem. The resources are there, the tools are there and the expertise is there. What can sometimes be missing is the willingness to accept that some of those resources will inevitably be invested in directions that may ultimately fail.
That is the price of innovation. It is also why the connection between Ferrari’s SF-26 development and its longer-term 2027 project is particularly relevant as the team tries to maximise what it can learn before technical convergence reduces the available room for experimentation.
Frederic Vasseur wants Ferrari to be less afraid of getting it wrong
Perhaps this is the most important change Frederic Vasseur is trying to produce at Maranello. He does not want Ferrari to take more risks simply to appear more adventurous. He wants a Ferrari that is less afraid of making mistakes while trying to arrive first.
That philosophy requires a careful balance. Technical boldness still has to be supported by engineering understanding, analysis and development, particularly on a car whose behaviour can depend on complex interactions between aerodynamic performance and other characteristics. Ferrari’s continuing work to understand the real performance limitations of the SF-26 remains part of that process.
In Formula 1, especially at the beginning of a new technical cycle, choosing not to take a risk is still a choice. And sometimes it is precisely that choice which gives somebody else the opportunity to arrive first.
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