Ferrari’s Singapore Grand Prix weekend brought a familiar SF-26 weakness back into focus ahead of its crucial Austin upgrade test. Qualifying had shown a Ferrari capable of fighting Max Verstappen for pole position until the final metres, but the race exposed a trend that has followed the SF-26 since the start of the season on the most rear-limited circuits: over a single lap, the car can often defend itself extremely well, but over a longer stint the rear progressively loses stability.
Singapore provided a particularly clear example. When grip is available, Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton can carry a great deal of speed through the corners and compensate for some of what the Ferrari loses on the straights. Once the rear tyre begins to lose consistency, however, sliding increases and it becomes more difficult to convert that cornering speed into effective traction. The same broader pattern was visible in the technical assessment of Ferrari’s Singapore performance.
Ferrari’s Singapore race pace exposes the SF-26 rear grip problem
The comparison with Red Bull has to be considered in light of two factors. Max Verstappen started on a new Soft tyre against Charles Leclerc’s used C5, a genuine advantage particularly at the start and over the duration of the stint. During the opening laps, the RB22 also suffered a deployment problem that left Max Verstappen more vulnerable than expected.
Charles Leclerc noticed the issue, but initially interpreted the loss of power as something temporary and did not immediately use all the energy available to prepare an attack. Once Red Bull resolved the problem, the pace changed and Max Verstappen began to pull away.
Between laps 10 and 14, Charles Leclerc lost an average of just under four tenths per lap. From laps 15 to 19, the deficit exceeded half a second, while between laps 20 and 23 it approached seven tenths. Dirty air can explain part of the initial loss, but not what followed: even once Charles Leclerc dropped more than two and a half seconds behind Max Verstappen, the gap continued to increase.
The trend adds another layer to the qualifying picture, when Ferrari had already shown exceptional cornering performance but remained limited elsewhere. The Singapore qualifying telemetry comparison highlighted how the SF-26 could recover substantial time through corners while losing part of that advantage in acceleration and straight-line sections.
Alt 2 zones reveal where Ferrari’s deficit increases
To understand where the difference developed, the three windows in which the FIA requires the Alt 2 energy configuration can be isolated: 400–900 metres, 1750–2150 metres and 2600–3000 metres.
Alt 2 is an alternative MGU-K electrical power-management curve. In these sections of the circuit, delivery does not follow the standard profile but is modulated according to a curve defined by the FIA, with the available electrical power progressively reduced as speed increases. It is important not to confuse Alt 2 with the Power Reduction Zones and, above all, not to interpret it as a direct measurement of the energy remaining in the battery.
The interesting element is therefore the behaviour of the lap-time delta. Between laps 15 and 18, Charles Leclerc lost an average of 0.459 seconds per lap to Max Verstappen, around 0.160 seconds of which came within the three Alt 2 windows. Four laps later, the overall deficit had increased to approximately 0.725 seconds, but the loss around the remainder of the circuit remained virtually unchanged at around three tenths.
It was the three Alt 2 zones that changed significantly, with the deficit increasing from approximately 0.160 seconds to more than 0.430 seconds.
By lap 23, the effect was even clearer. Of the little more than one second Ferrari was losing, almost seven tenths accumulated specifically through those sequences. At first glance, that might appear to be the signature of an energy-management problem, but a deeper look at the data points towards something different.
Ferrari carries more corner speed but Red Bull prepares the exit better
In the first window, Charles Leclerc reaches the slowest section carrying a few kilometres per hour less speed than Max Verstappen, but the time required to add the first 50 km/h is almost identical. Red Bull’s advantage develops over the following metres, when Max Verstappen builds speed earlier. The margin then tends to decrease once the cars reach the upper part of the acceleration phase.
If Ferrari were simply suffering from more aggressive electrical clipping, it would be logical to expect the loss to become progressively larger as speed increased. That is not what the data shows.
The third window is even more revealing. Charles Leclerc carries an average minimum speed of around 108 km/h compared with 104 km/h for Max Verstappen. From that point, however, Max Verstappen takes approximately 1.96 seconds to add 50 km/h, while Charles Leclerc needs around 2.20 seconds. That is almost a quarter of a second.
The figure illustrates two very different approaches to building lap time. Ferrari looks for performance while the car is still cornering, carrying considerable speed into and through the corner. Max Verstappen can sacrifice something at the minimum speed, complete the rotation earlier and put the RB22 in a better position to accelerate.
Over a qualifying lap, Ferrari’s approach works because a fresh tyre allows Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton to exploit all the available grip and recover through the corners what the SF-26 tends to concede on the straights. Over a longer stint, however, the same behaviour becomes more expensive.
Once the rear tyre loses consistency, the SF-26 has to demand significant lateral grip and traction at the same time. A little additional sliding is enough to increase tyre temperature; as the temperature rises, grip falls and wheelspin increases further when the driver returns to the throttle. It is a mechanism Ferrari has already encountered at other rear-limited circuits and one that became evident again in Singapore. Further SF-26 development and setup trends can be followed through the Ferrari technical analysis section.
Medium tyres help separate tyre behaviour from energy deployment
The most important check comes after the pit stops. When Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc were both running on the Medium tyre between laps 34 and 38, their behaviour in the same Alt 2 windows changed significantly. Charles Leclerc continued to lose some time over the complete lap, but the balance inside the three specific zones became essentially neutral and was even marginally favourable to Ferrari by a few hundredths of a second.
That result is difficult to reconcile with the idea that Red Bull possessed a clear advantage purely through MGU-K management. If the advantage were primarily structural and linked to deployment, it should remain visible after changing tyre compound. Instead, it almost disappeared precisely when the behaviour of the tyre changed.
This does not eliminate Red Bull’s advantage on the straights or the contribution of the power unit. It does, however, indicate that Ferrari’s worsening performance during the opening stint was driven primarily by the interaction between the rear tyre, rotation and traction. The Alt 2 zones amplify the effect rather than appearing to be its main cause.
The different compound behaviour can also be examined through the F1 Tyre & Stint Analysis, which compares Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton’s Singapore tyre strategies, stint lengths and observed pace trends.
Lewis Hamilton’s race confirms how important the tyre compound was
Lewis Hamilton’s race provides another indication of how important the compound was. The Briton started on a new Medium tyre in an attempt to extend the opening stint and wait for the point at which Soft-tyre degradation should have made the C4 more competitive. That crossover never arrived.
Lewis Hamilton complained about his pace early in the stint and Ferrari confirmed from the pit wall that the Soft continued to provide more grip. Degradation on the C5 remained too low for the Medium to recover its performance deficit.
When Lewis Hamilton switched to the Soft, his pace improved. Later, during the Virtual Safety Car period, however, he stayed out to defend track position despite Ferrari being ready to make a double pit stop. The decision worked for several laps before the C5 suddenly dropped out of its operating window and his pace fell towards the 1:39 range. At that point, his track position could no longer be defended.
The full sequence behind that decisive moment, including Ferrari’s instruction during the VSC and Lewis Hamilton’s decision to remain on track, is detailed in the analysis of why Hamilton stayed out as Ferrari’s Singapore podium slipped away.
Austin will test whether Ferrari has worked on the right SF-26 problem
Singapore gave Ferrari a very clear indication of how the SF-26 behaves, but Austin will not necessarily be the perfect circuit for directly testing the rear-end limitation that emerged at Marina Bay. The Texas circuit tends to place greater stress on the front axle, particularly through the first sector, where rapid direction changes and precise turn-in become decisive.
The major upgrade expected in the United States will therefore have to be assessed first and foremost on whether it makes the SF-26 platform more complete and less sensitive to different operating conditions. Simply finding a few additional points of downforce will not be enough. Ferrari will need to determine whether it has widened the aerodynamic operating window while maintaining a more stable balance between the front and rear axles throughout the lap.
The importance of that development step has already increased following Charles Leclerc’s concerns about Ferrari losing ground to its rivals. The Ferrari Austin upgrade package will now provide an important indication of whether the team can make the SF-26 consistently competitive across a wider variety of circuit characteristics.
On the power-unit side, meanwhile, the available margin for further performance development has now been essentially exhausted following the two ADUO interventions already introduced. To reduce the deficit to Red Bull on the straights, Ferrari will therefore have to focus primarily on the quality of the car itself: greater efficiency, better preparation for the acceleration phase and a platform capable of making more effective use of the available torque.
Austin can show whether the package represents a genuine overall step forward for the SF-26. Determining whether Ferrari has also corrected the rear-limited weakness exposed in Singapore, however, will require more representative circuits and long-run conditions.
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