Ferrari arrives in Austria buoyed by Lewis Hamilton’s stunning victory at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, but within Maranello there is no desire to place excessive pressure on the team. The Scuderia will introduce its third power unit of the season at the Red Bull Ring, featuring the first upgrades permitted under the FIA’s ADUO framework, while a further evolution known as ADUO2 is expected to include a newly designed turbocharger.
Lewis Hamilton’s commanding success in Spain was not something Ferrari had realistically expected before the weekend. For that reason, the mood in Maranello remains measured, with the team choosing to approach the next phase of the championship cautiously despite the major breakthrough.
The aerodynamic upgrade package introduced in Barcelona worked exceptionally well. The SF-26 demonstrated the pace needed to challenge and defeat Mercedes, bringing an end to a six-race winning streak that had appeared untouchable up to that point.
As a result, Ferrari heads to the Red Bull Ring with renewed confidence, but without any intention of increasing expectations. The preferred scenario is still for Mercedes to remain the benchmark, allowing the Scuderia to capitalize on opportunities as they arise, just as it successfully did in Spain.
Within Ferrari’s racing division, enthusiasm is therefore being deliberately tempered. The feeling is that Barcelona should not automatically be viewed as the turning point of the championship, because this season is likely to be decided by development speed and technical progress rather than by any single race result.
Success in modern Formula 1 increasingly depends on winning the development battle inside the factories as much as on-track performance. Introducing upgrades at the right moment, as Ferrari did after the disappointment of Monaco, can create a significant competitive advantage and raise the overall performance ceiling.
One of the most important developments for Austria is the debut of Ferrari’s third engine of the season. The updated 067/6 power unit incorporates modifications approved under the FIA’s Additional Development and Upgrade Opportunities (ADUO) regulations.
Ferrari was granted permission to carry out two development steps this season and two more next year because FIA technical assessments determined that its internal combustion engine was more than four percent behind the benchmark established by the Red Bull Powertrains Ford unit. According to the available evaluation data, the turbocharged six-cylinder DM01 currently represents the reference point within the Formula 1 paddock.
The engine department led by Enrico Gualtieri has therefore introduced a first round of modifications aimed at reducing the gap to the Brixworth-built power unit, which many insiders continue to regard as the true benchmark despite the FIA not officially sharing that view.
Even in this area, Ferrari is attempting to manage expectations. The work carried out on the combustion chamber, supported by an innovative steel-alloy cylinder head, allows engineers to pursue pressure and temperature levels that would be impossible with a traditional aluminum-alloy engine design.
The most intriguing aspect of this first engine evolution is that it comes after Ferrari gained a deeper understanding of the new regulations and how rival manufacturers have interpreted them. Under the current rules, roughly half of the total power output is generated by the internal combustion engine, with the remainder coming from the electrical systems.
The challenge is finding the perfect balance between performance and reliability. During the opening phase of the championship, the priority was durability. Now, attention is gradually shifting toward extracting greater performance.
Over the winter, there was considerable discussion about a potential fuel war after manufacturers were given freedom to develop net-zero synthetic fuels. That topic quickly faded into the background, however, as clipping and super-clipping became dominant concerns and most of the debate centered on battery performance.
Ferrari is now attempting what some inside the paddock describe as a technical “magic trick.” Engineers are pushing the concept of a hotter-running engine to levels never previously reached, targeting intake air temperatures of around 110 degrees Celsius compared to the current benchmark of approximately 100 degrees.
The objective is to create a more compressed fluid mixture which, when combined with a Shell fuel featuring a higher calorific value, allows more particles to be burned efficiently while reducing the residual emissions produced during combustion.
At the beginning of the project, Ferrari accepted several compromises that helped enable some of the SF-26’s most extreme design solutions, including smaller radiators with high airflow efficiency and highly compact intercoolers. Now, however, the focus is shifting toward the next stage of evolution for the turbocharged V6 power unit.
The quality of the aerodynamic package introduced by Loic Serra in Barcelona demonstrated that a more efficient and lower-drag car could effectively compensate for much of the power deficit that the 067/6 engine was believed to have compared to Mercedes. In the intense Spanish heat, the frequently discussed 25-horsepower gap appeared to have virtually disappeared.
The next challenge falls to Enrico Gualtieri and his engineering team, who appear largely unaffected by the departure of Wolf Zimmermann. Their task is to unlock the full potential of the power unit while progressively refining some of the fundamental design choices made during development.
The decision to use a smaller turbocharger initially appeared sensible because it helped reduce turbo lag in the absence of the MGU-H. However, the expected advantage, particularly during race starts, was effectively neutralized.
The FIA’s decision to add five seconds to the starting procedure, allowing all manufacturers sufficient time to fully spool up their turbochargers for safety reasons and to prevent cars from stalling on the grid, has undoubtedly reduced the benefit Ferrari expected to gain from that design philosophy.
Looking ahead, ADUO2 is expected to arrive either in the Netherlands or at Monza. That package will feature a newly designed turbocharger. While the compressor wheel diameter is not expected to change, engineers are working on a revised blade count, different blade angles and potential improvements in materials technology.
Neither Mercedes nor Honda are expected to introduce ADUO engine upgrades. Ferrari, meanwhile, following a similar approach to Audi’s strategy seen in Barcelona, appears determined to move first and exploit every development opportunity available under the regulations.
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