Charles Leclerc has warned against overestimating the impact of Ferrari’s latest SF-26 upgrades despite finishing fastest in both Friday practice sessions for the 2026 United States Grand Prix. The Maranello team has made an encouraging start at the Circuit of the Americas, but the Monegasque believes Mercedes and Red Bull still have additional performance to unlock, making it premature to suggest Ferrari has established a decisive advantage.
The results from FP1 and FP2 provide a positive first indication for Ferrari’s new aerodynamic package, but Charles Leclerc is determined not to confuse a successful opening day with confirmation of a significant improvement relative to its rivals. The SF-26 appears to be operating in the desired performance window, although the true scale of its progress remains uncertain ahead of qualifying and the race.
His message is particularly important given how closely matched the leading teams appear to be. A few hundredths of a second, changes in car preparation or different practice programmes could substantially alter the competitive order. Ferrari may have found the direction it wanted, but its driver believes the new components should not automatically be credited with a larger lap-time improvement than they have actually produced.
Ferrari’s Austin upgrades are working, but Charles Leclerc urges caution
Ferrari arrived in Texas with significant revisions to several important aerodynamic areas of the SF-26. The development programme includes changes to the floor, sidepod inlets and diffuser, all of which contribute to generating downforce and controlling the airflow beneath the car.
The complete technical changes are examined in our Ferrari SF-26 Austin upgrade analysis, which explains how the four principal development areas are intended to work together.
Ferrari invested considerable time and resources into bringing the package forward, hoping it would help the team recover ground during the final stages of the championship. The latest developments represent an opportunity to improve the car’s competitiveness, but expectations had already been moderated before the opening practice session.
Lewis Hamilton suggested ahead of the weekend that the expected performance improvement from the upgrades was only around half a tenth of a second. Whether that estimate reflected deliberate caution or the team’s genuine expectations remains open to interpretation, but it provides useful context for Charles Leclerc’s comments after topping both sessions.
The Ferrari driver finished FP1 just 0.084 seconds ahead of Max Verstappen before leading FP2 by an even smaller margin of 0.042 seconds over Kimi Antonelli. Those figures confirm that the SF-26 was competitive from the beginning of the weekend, but they do not establish the definitive balance of performance between the leading teams.
Differences in practice programmes, fuel loads and car configurations must also be considered when interpreting the results. Ferrari’s encouraging start is therefore an important reference rather than conclusive proof that its latest aerodynamic developments have transformed the competitive order.
Reflecting on the opening day, Charles Leclerc explained: “The feeling is pretty good, but we have to be careful. Obviously, it’s only Friday. We’re seeing what we expected, but once again, it’s definitely not what everyone thinks in terms of upgrades and the lap time gained. It was a good day. I think the balance of the car was good and we were in the right operating window straight away. That paid off.”
The Monegasque acknowledged that the work carried out to accelerate the introduction of the package was producing some benefits. However, he stressed that the improvement should not create unrealistic expectations for qualifying.
“Obviously, all the hard work that has gone into bringing this upgrade as quickly as possible is helping us a little, but we shouldn’t have expectations that are too high for tomorrow. I feel the others have more potential to unlock. Kimi and Max look very strong. As for McLaren, I don’t have a clear picture yet. I don’t think they’ve put everything together, but Kimi and Max will definitely be among the contenders.”
His assessment reflects Ferrari’s need to separate the benefits of the updated components from the overall performance achieved through its setup and preparation work. A car operating immediately within a favourable balance window can produce competitive lap times even when the additional performance generated by new parts remains relatively modest.
The opening practice programme also provided Ferrari with a direct comparison between specifications. Charles Leclerc used the updated car during FP1, while Lewis Hamilton initially ran the previous package. That evaluation formed part of Ferrari’s split-specification Austin test, before both drivers moved onto the latest configuration.
Fred Vasseur expects five or six cars to fight for Austin pole position
Charles Leclerc’s cautious assessment is shared by Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur, who is reluctant to draw firm conclusions from Friday’s practice classification. The French manager recognises that lap times from free practice can be misleading, particularly when teams are following different programmes and may approach qualifying with substantially different car preparations.
Ferrari has not won a race since the British Grand Prix, the ninth round of the 2026 championship, and recovering ground remains an important objective. However, the pressure to improve must not lead the team to overestimate the progress made with its latest developments.
The Austin package offers an opportunity to improve the SF-26, but further running under more representative competitive conditions will be necessary before its effectiveness can be properly assessed.
Discussing Ferrari’s Friday performance, Fred Vasseur explained: “It’s a good start, but I think that once again everything is very close. I’m not sure the FP1 classification has always been representative of what we’ll see in qualifying. That means we have to focus on ourselves and keep working. We still have a lot to learn about the car with the new package, and we have to try to do a better job tomorrow.”
His comments underline that the development process is not complete simply because the updated car has reached the top of the timesheets. Ferrari still needs to understand how the new aerodynamic package behaves in different conditions and ensure that its performance can be reproduced when qualifying begins.
The team principal also acknowledged that the latest upgrades are producing smaller gains than the developments introduced earlier in the championship.
“We’re still at a very early stage. The impact of the upgrades is certainly a little smaller than what we had at the beginning of the season. That means we have to refine every aspect and try to get the maximum out of the car for tomorrow. Let’s first see what happens in qualifying, because when you find yourself in dirty air, everything becomes more difficult. I think there will be five or six cars capable of fighting for pole position tomorrow. It’s good for Formula 1 and for us if we’re at the front.”
Fred Vasseur’s prediction highlights just how competitive the fight for pole could become. Ferrari has demonstrated the ability to challenge at the front, but Mercedes and Red Bull remain serious threats, while McLaren’s full potential has yet to be established.
With the margins already extremely narrow, the leading teams could find themselves separated by only small differences when they complete their decisive qualifying runs. Fans can explore qualifying lap times, sector differences and theoretical best laps using the ScuderiaFans F1 Qualifying Pace and Sector Comparison tool.
Austin qualifying will reveal the real impact of Ferrari’s SF-26 upgrades
The central question for Ferrari is how much of its Friday performance reflects genuine improvements to the SF-26 and how much was influenced by the particular conditions and programmes used during practice.
The Circuit of the Americas provides a demanding test because its combination of high-speed corners, rapid changes of direction and heavy braking zones requires a car that can maintain an effective balance across very different situations. Strong performance over a single flying lap is encouraging, but it does not reveal everything about a car’s overall competitiveness.
Tyre management during longer runs will be another important factor. Ferrari must establish whether the updated package can deliver consistent performance over a race stint rather than simply producing competitive qualifying simulations.
For that reason, Fred Vasseur is unwilling to reach definitive conclusions before qualifying. The team has started the weekend strongly and demonstrated that it can compete with the leading contenders, but it remains to be seen whether the upgrades will allow Ferrari to maintain that level when Mercedes, Red Bull and McLaren have completed their preparation work.
The initial results from Charles Leclerc’s session-leading Austin FP2 performance provide an encouraging benchmark. Nevertheless, the actual competitive picture may change as teams refine their configurations and move towards the most demanding stages of the weekend.
Charles Leclerc has identified the main danger clearly: treating a positive Friday as proof that Ferrari has already completed the recovery it is attempting to achieve. The team’s latest developments appear to be helping, and the SF-26 has shown promising balance, but the leading rivals may still have performance available.
Ferrari therefore approaches qualifying with optimism tempered by realism. Friday’s timesheet offers evidence of competitiveness, not a final verdict on the effectiveness of its Austin upgrades. The true answer will emerge when every thousandth of a second matters in qualifying and, even more importantly, when the cars compete over the full race distance.
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