Ferrari showed slightly less outright performance compared to Mercedes during the Chinese Grand Prix weekend, but the SF-26 continues to reveal a number of important and encouraging strengths that should not be overlooked. According to the drivers themselves, the car feels very good and well-balanced to drive and still appears to have a considerable amount of untapped performance potential that can be extracted over the coming races. Analysis carried out so far has already highlighted how different the Italian car is compared to the Mercedes W17 in several key areas, ranging from overall balance and mechanical setup to energy deployment and management strategies.
During the race weekend at the Shanghai International Circuit in China, another crucial difference between the two cars became clearly visible: tyre management. More specifically, the Ferrari SF-26 demonstrated an ability to bring its tyres up to operating temperature more quickly and efficiently than the Mercedes. This characteristic was particularly evident at the beginning of the second stint, when both Ferrari drivers, Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton, as well as the two Mercedes drivers, George Russell and Kimi Antonelli, were running on the hard compound tyres.
Both teams opted for a double pit stop as soon as the Safety Car was deployed, reacting immediately to the neutralization of the race. On exiting the pit lane, Kimi Antonelli benefited from a favorable situation, as he found Franco Colapinto and Esteban Ocon positioned between himself and the two Ferrari cars. These drivers had decided to stay out on track and not make a pit stop, effectively acting as a buffer between the race leader and the rest of the chasing group.
However, Mercedes encountered clear difficulties when it came to bringing the tyres into the correct operating window. Kimi Antonelli, much like his teammate George Russell, experienced several issues warming up both axles of the car, with a particular emphasis on the front tyres, which struggled more to reach the desired temperature. While still circulating behind the Safety Car, the Italian reported over the radio that the pace of the Safety Car was too slow, underlining the challenge of generating sufficient heat in the tyres under those conditions.
From the pit wall, the Mercedes engineers informed him that the hard compound required several laps to reach its optimal working range. However, the significant loss of pace observed at the beginning of the stint can be attributed more to the lack of tyre temperature rather than to a naturally slow warm-up characteristic of the compound itself. This conclusion can be supported both by the data visible on the steering wheel dashboard and by the direct feedback provided by Kimi Antonelli during that phase of the Chinese Grand Prix.
The situation became even more apparent once the two Ferrari drivers managed to clear the slower cars ahead and began to close the gap rapidly to the Mercedes. Telemetry data from the laps immediately following the Safety Car restart clearly shows that in the early phase of the stint, the Ferrari SF-26 was at least as fast as the Mercedes W17, if not even slightly quicker in certain moments. This observation becomes even more significant when considering that, over the full Shanghai race distance, Ferrari was on average around half a second per lap slower than the Mercedes.
Ferrari’s work on tyre management therefore appears to be extremely effective and well-optimized. The SF-26 is capable of transferring a greater amount of energy into the tyre carcass over the same period of time, which allows for a faster and more efficient warm-up process. Tyre temperature management operates on multiple levels: while it is generally easier to increase the surface temperature of the tyre, the real technical challenge lies in heating the inner structure, commonly referred to as the “bulk” of the tyre.
This explains why Kimi Antonelli continued weaving on the main straight even after the race restart, attempting to generate additional heat in the tyres through lateral movement. During the Shanghai race weekend, the white-banded Pirelli tyres corresponded to the C2 compound, which is known to be relatively hard and to operate within a higher temperature window compared to softer compounds.
It is also important to underline that achieving a faster tyre warm-up is not always a guaranteed advantage in every scenario. The effectiveness of this characteristic depends heavily on the specific circuit layout, track surface, and environmental conditions like ambient and track temperatures. So far in the 2026 Formula 1 season, the championship has visited circuits where temperatures have been relatively low, and under these cooler conditions Ferrari has clearly benefited from this inherent characteristic that was already built into the car during its design phase.
With the current generation of Formula 1 cars, tyre warm-up has become a more complex and widespread challenge for all teams. On the straights, the aerodynamic load is reduced as the wings unload, which in turn decreases the stress applied to the tyres. Similarly, in the corners, lower speeds compared to the 2025 season mean that less energy is transferred into the tyres, making it harder to bring them into the optimal operating window.
For this reason, the SF-26’s ability to bring its tyres up to temperature more quickly should be viewed as a clear and valuable strength. This characteristic can prove particularly beneficial in qualifying sessions, where extracting maximum performance from the tyres in a short window is absolutely crucial.
This specific area of development had already been anticipated earlier in the season as part of the work led by Ferrari Chassis Technical Director Loïc Serra, and it now appears to be delivering the expected results on track. The Ferrari SF-26 shows a wide range of strengths and positive characteristics across different technical areas. However, at this stage, these qualities are still partially masked by the significant performance deficit that the car continues to suffer compared to Mercedes, especially due to the German team’s clear dominance in straight-line speed and overall power unit performance.
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