Between drivers who are on the brink of tension and technical purges that have unsettled the workforce, Ferrari’s 2026 season already presents itself as a highly complex and extremely challenging scenario. The central question looming over Maranello is whether the current Ferrari team principal, Fred Vasseur, will be able to untangle these deeply rooted problems, these intricate knots, and steer the Italian side back toward competitive relevance in the highly demanding world of modern Formula 1.
The 2025 campaign for Ferrari did not unfold as anticipated or hoped for by the team management, the engineers, or even the passionate fans who closely follow the Scuderia’s every move. The races in Baku and Singapore represent only the most recent examples in a long series of setbacks and disappointing performances that accumulated over the season, transforming pre-season celebrations, optimistic proclamations, and public statements of confidence into a painful boomerang effect that hit the entire team squarely and shook its very foundations. The strong finish to the previous season, combined with the promising design and development of the SF-25 project, created an atmosphere of over-optimism. This optimism generated a level of hype, both internally among the engineers and technical staff, and externally among the media and global fanbase, that ultimately proved detrimental and counterproductive for the overall morale of the team.
Each on-track defeat further heightened tension within the Maranello team and worsened relationships, both between the drivers and within the technical departments, leading to a series of painful separations of key personnel and unpleasant public statements from drivers expressing their frustration. Fred Vasseur, as team principal, now finds himself in an increasingly difficult position, where defending the team against criticism and explaining catastrophic performances has become an almost impossible task. Even the most creative arguments or attempts to spin explanations in a positive light cannot hide the severity of the situation when the results on track are as disastrous as those witnessed during the season.
One may ask whether such a technical and strategic failure was predictable in advance. To this, the honest response must be no. Today, it is easy for anyone—even those without detailed technical knowledge—to criticize Ferrari and to place blame on the team’s decisions. However, a careful analysis shows that the 2025 SF-25 project is not fundamentally different from the McLaren MCL39, which has been dominating races in the same period. Evidence of Ferrari’s underlying potential was visible whenever the team managed to operate the car at the correct ride height, as seen during the Sprint races in China and Hungary, where the car’s performance reached top-tier levels, proving that the project itself had all the necessary components to succeed if properly managed.
Contrary to many public statements circulating in media outlets and among pundits, this year’s Ferrari car remains a potentially winning project. Nevertheless, it suffers from a chronic and persistent problem with ride height. The car is unable to maintain the optimal ground clearance consistently across the various transitions of a race lap, resulting in excessive wear on the skid blocks, which are designed to protect the car’s floor. This excessive wear has led to painful penalties and disqualifications that have cost the team crucial points and further added to the sense of frustration.
The apparent solution would be to raise the rear of the car in order to stabilize the ride height. However, this adjustment inevitably generates a significant loss of downforce, a key factor in achieving competitive lap times, which has relegated Ferrari to fighting for mid-field positions rather than challenging for victories as originally intended. This is not a minor flaw in the project and should not be underestimated. It is, in fact, a fundamental and glaring error—one that leads to the loss of so-called “good” downforce, meaning the downforce that does not come at the expense of aerodynamic drag. This problem effectively negates much of the technical merit and soundness that the project inherently possesses.
Unfortunately, in the current era of ground-effect aerodynamics, even the smallest deviations of a few millimeters in ride height can transform a potentially winning car into a total failure, rendering both mechanical and aerodynamic developments largely ineffective. This has been precisely the scenario for Ferrari in 2025, where minor discrepancies have been magnified and have undermined the effectiveness of upgrades and technical solutions introduced throughout the season.
Efforts to modify the rear suspension geometry have so far proven largely ineffective. This is despite widespread claims from so-called “experts,” including commentators from prominent and respected publications, who suggested that a “new” completely redesigned suspension system would be a panacea for the car’s issues. Over multiple analyses, it has been repeatedly pointed out that a radical suspension change during the course of a season is practically impossible without undertaking major structural modifications. Such changes typically require a complete redesign of the gearbox housing, a procedure that demands extensive planning and resources and is well understood by anyone with intimate knowledge of Formula 1 technical regulations and engineering processes.
The residual effects of this extremely difficult 2025 season are expected to influence Ferrari’s approach to the 2026 project. A season that was initially intended to bring the World Championship back to Maranello team has instead transformed into yet another failure, disrupting internal balances, creating tensions between departments, and triggering another round of technical purges. Among the most recent departures were key figures behind Ferrari’s high-performance engine, including Zimmermann and Schmidt, who had been instrumental in developing the so-called “superfast” power unit. Their departures occurred at a critical juncture, during a phase of project development that will play a decisive role in determining the team’s competitiveness and overall fortunes for the next four years.
From an external perspective—which is the only perspective available to the majority of observers—the impression is that Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur is facing significant managerial challenges. The sudden and repeated loss of crucial technical personnel during such a delicate period of design and development is difficult to justify logically. Adding to this concern, high-profile figures such as Enrico Cardile left the team abruptly and have already assumed prestigious leadership positions in other Formula 1 teams, highlighting how talent exodus may be affecting Ferrari’s ability to maintain continuity in its technical projects.
This leads to two possible interpretations of the internal dynamics at Maranello. One possibility is that there are serious unresolved issues with the new project, prompting management to replace the engineers who originally developed it with new personnel capable of providing a different perspective and approach. The alternative explanation is that long-standing interpersonal conflicts and frictions are so entrenched that the management is resorting to immediate dismissals in order to create a more harmonious working environment, even at the risk of compromising technical continuity and consistency.
One certainty remains: Ferrari has historically struggled with aligning all members of the organization toward a single unified goal due to the influence of personal agendas, internal rivalries, and political maneuvering. This is a stark contrast to the situation in many British Formula 1 teams, where political considerations and personal agendas are generally far less influential, and decision-making tends to be more streamlined and collaborative than is often observed at Maranello.
Tensions are evident not only on the technical side but also within the driver lineup. This is particularly noticeable in the case of Charles Leclerc, who appears increasingly fatigued after seven long years of lofty proclamations followed by repeated disappointments on track. The Monegasque driver’s attitude has, at times, bordered on insubordination, particularly toward the technical staff, reflecting frustration that has been building over multiple seasons of unfulfilled expectations.
For several Grand Prix in a row, Charles Leclerc has issued tense, sometimes harsh, team radio messages directed at the engineers and strategists for not implementing his suggested changes. These public expressions of frustration have illuminated an internal split within the team: on one side are engineers who rely strictly on data, telemetry, and algorithmic analysis, and on the other is the driver who wishes for race management that also considers his personal feel, instincts, and sensory feedback from the car.
This situation has revealed a worrying lack of mutual trust, a fragile foundation upon which it will be difficult to build a successful project over the coming years. In modern Formula 1, the creation of a competitive car requires more than numerical data and sophisticated calculations; it demands a harmonious relationship between driver and engineers, allowing the car to be pushed to its maximum potential in every session.
Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari’s other lead driver, has also displayed signs of growing frustration over the past several months. Unlike Charles Leclerc, however, Lewis Hamilton has responded to these technical challenges with a mixture of patience and resignation, seemingly accepting a situation that he finds difficult to adapt to given the car’s limitations. Of particular interest is a statement Lewis Hamilton made some time ago, in which he revealed that he had sent a detailed dossier to the team, outlining specific areas where he believed improvements were needed.
In a normal, functional workplace, such an approach would typically be unnecessary. Open dialogue with the relevant technical personnel is usually sufficient to identify and resolve issues without the need for formal documentation. Nevertheless, these small, seemingly minor signals collectively indicate that Ferrari is experiencing several internal challenges, which could significantly compromise its prospects for 2026 even before the new season has begun.
Now that Fred Vasseur has been confirmed in his role as team principal, he faces the most difficult task of his tenure: untangling the numerous Gordian knots that have accumulated within the organization. Only by successfully addressing these structural, technical, and interpersonal challenges can Ferrari hope to break free from current constraints and mount a credible challenge in the highly competitive 2026 Formula 1 season. The success or failure of these efforts will be critical not only for the team’s immediate competitiveness but also for the long-term development of the Scuderia and its ability to remain a dominant force in the world of Formula 1.
Have your say on the Maranello team’s prospects for the 2026 F1 regulations. Do you believes Fred Vasseur can turn things around? Let us know with a comment at the end of the article or on our social media channels: Facebook Group / Facebook Page / Instagram / X (former Twitter) and TikTok.
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