Ferrari’s 2026 Formula 1 campaign has earned a notably positive assessment from Rob Smedley and Otmar Szafnauer, who believe the SF-26 has shown that the Maranello team is finally making better use of the current regulations. Despite the lack of victories its potential might suggest, the car’s consistency and reliability have helped keep Ferrari second in the Constructors’ Championship and involved in the fight at the front.
The verdict emerged during the High Performance Racing podcast, where Smedley, Szafnauer and Jake Humphrey assessed Ferrari’s progress through the first half of the season. Their overall view was considerably more encouraging than some of the criticism surrounding the Scuderia, although race management was identified as an area where valuable opportunities are still being lost.
Rob Smedley gives Ferrari an eight for its 2026 season
Former Ferrari track engineer Rob Smedley rated the team’s campaign at eight out of ten. He believes Maranello has finally developed a stronger understanding of how to extract performance under the regulations, particularly compared with previous seasons when Ferrari could produce a competitive car without maintaining that level consistently from one weekend to the next.
According to Smedley, that inconsistency has been reduced considerably in 2026. The SF-26 has been a genuinely strong car across the campaign, supporting the view that Ferrari’s progress is not based on one isolated result or circuit characteristic. That assessment also fits with the wider picture of a car whose behaviour and limitations have been examined closely during the season, including the technical analysis of Ferrari’s SF-26 difficulties in Hungary.
However, Smedley did not present Ferrari’s season as faultless. He identified strategic mistakes as one of the principal areas still preventing the team from maximising the package available to Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc. In his assessment, the quality of the car itself is no longer the central concern, making race execution an increasingly important part of Ferrari’s challenge.
Otmar Szafnauer believes Ferrari’s rating could be even higher
Former Formula 1 team principal Otmar Szafnauer went further, suggesting that an eight out of ten might actually undersell what Ferrari has achieved. He highlighted two factors in particular: the Scuderia has the strongest reliability record among the teams and occupies second place in the Constructors’ Championship.
The SF-26’s ability to deliver stable performance throughout the first half of the season was another reason for the positive assessment. Ferrari has not converted that competitiveness into as many victories as the underlying potential might have suggested, but its position in the championship reflects a level of consistency that has kept the team near the front. That contrast between clear progress and the demand for further improvement has also been central to Frédéric Vasseur’s own mid-season assessment of Ferrari.
Charles Leclerc’s setbacks enter the Ferrari-Mercedes comparison
Jake Humphrey also argued that the championship gap between Ferrari and Mercedes might give an exaggerated impression of the difference between the two teams. He suggested that Charles Leclerc could have left Ferrari considerably closer to the championship lead with more favourable circumstances and fewer problems during the opening half of the year.
Szafnauer was more cautious about evaluating the championship through hypothetical outcomes. He pointed out that Mercedes had also dropped points because of its own problems, meaning lost opportunities cannot reasonably be considered from Ferrari’s perspective alone.
Recent races have nevertheless demonstrated why execution can have such a significant effect on the standings. Ferrari left the Hungarian Grand Prix without a podium despite having opportunities to score more heavily, illustrating how the final result can depend on much more than the underlying competitiveness of the car.
Ferrari’s SF-26 progress keeps the championship fight open
The broader assessment from Smedley and Szafnauer is therefore positive. Ferrari is viewed as one of the teams to have interpreted the 2026 regulations particularly well, producing an SF-26 that combines competitiveness with a greater degree of consistency than some of its predecessors.
That does not mean the work is complete. Strategy and race management remain areas where the Scuderia can improve, while converting performance into victories will ultimately determine how successful the season becomes. Ferrari’s position in the Constructors’ Championship has nevertheless kept the contest alive, and the combination of reliability and a consistently competitive car gives the team a foundation from which to attack the remainder of 2026.
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