Ferrari’s persistent qualifying weakness with the SF-26 is reportedly creating a bigger problem for Charles Leclerc than for Lewis Hamilton, despite the two drivers remaining almost inseparable on the stopwatch across the first 14 rounds of the 2026 Formula 1 season.
The Maranello team has already enjoyed significant highs this year, with Lewis Hamilton winning in Barcelona and Charles Leclerc taking victory at Silverstone. Yet with nine rounds remaining, Ferrari’s championship ambitions have faded considerably. Hamilton sits third in the Drivers’ standings, 101 points behind Mercedes leader Kimi Antonelli, while Leclerc is fifth and 44 points behind second-placed George Russell. Ferrari, meanwhile, trails Mercedes by 145 points in the Constructors’ Championship.
Ferrari’s SF-26 qualifying problem goes beyond strategy
Much of Ferrari’s 2026 frustration has centred on race execution. Strategic mistakes involving both drivers and the team’s reluctance to establish clear team orders have cost opportunities during the season, with the issue becoming particularly prominent around the Ferrari team-orders debate involving Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc.
However, qualifying has emerged as another major limitation. Automoto.it reports that while Ferrari continues working to improve its strategic decision-making, engineers have yet to solve what has developed into a severe one-lap weakness linked to the software demands of the 2026 power unit regulations.
The problem concerns the predictive power delivery systems required by the new-generation engines. With the 2026 power units operating with an almost equal contribution from the internal combustion engine and electrical energy, teams have had to rely much more heavily on software capable of predicting and managing how power is delivered around an entire lap.
Why Ferrari’s power mapping affects Charles Leclerc differently
According to the report, Ferrari’s current electronic mapping is making it harder for Charles Leclerc to exploit the SF-26 in the way his driving style requires. Lewis Hamilton appears to be adapting more comfortably to the same limitation, even though the raw qualifying numbers show remarkably little between the two Ferrari drivers.
After 14 Grands Prix, Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton are tied 7-7 in their qualifying head-to-head. Both have reached Q3 at every round so far, while each has achieved a best starting position of second. Hamilton recorded P2 in Barcelona and Hungary, with Leclerc matching that result in Austria and Britain.
The season-long comparison can be followed in the Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton F1 head-to-head statistics, which place their internal Ferrari battle in the wider context of qualifying and race performance.
The average qualifying gap is even more striking. Hamilton holds an advantage of only 0.014 seconds, a figure heavily influenced by the 0.538-second margin he held over Leclerc in Q3 at the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix. Despite that tiny average difference, the report indicates that Leclerc is having to work considerably harder to extract the SF-26’s available one-lap performance.
Predictive power delivery becomes critical under 2026 F1 rules
The difficulty illustrates how much the character of qualifying has changed under the 2026 regulations. With electrical deployment carrying far greater importance, the driver is increasingly dependent on how accurately the software predicts where energy should be released and how the power unit maps that delivery around the circuit.
If those settings do not complement a driver’s preferred approach to braking, corner entry and acceleration, the effect can be felt even when the car’s underlying performance remains competitive. In Leclerc’s case, the reported mismatch is making it more difficult to produce the kind of aggressive single-lap performance that has traditionally been one of his strengths.
For readers looking to examine the differences between Q1, Q2 and Q3 performance in greater detail, ScuderiaFans’ F1 Qualifying Pace & Sector Comparison provides additional context for how small time losses can develop across a qualifying lap.
Lewis Hamilton expected Mercedes to find more in Madrid
The problem was again evident during qualifying in Madrid. Lewis Hamilton indicated afterwards that he had already expected Mercedes to uncover additional performance before the cars returned to the circuit for Q3.
The seven-time world champion’s assessment was that Ferrari had too often reached the limit of its available performance earlier in qualifying, leaving less margin to improve when rivals increased their pace in the decisive final segment. That pattern helps explain why the SF-26 can initially appear competitive before losing ground when the fastest laps are produced.
It also reinforces the sense that Ferrari’s issue is not simply about finding more outright speed. The challenge is extracting that performance at exactly the right moment and making the power unit, electronic mapping and chassis work together over one qualifying lap.
Ferrari’s engineers therefore face a particularly delicate task. The internal battle between Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton remains extremely close statistically, yet the same car is not presenting the same level of difficulty to both drivers. Further developments around the SF-26 and its underlying performance trends can be followed through ScuderiaFans’ Ferrari technical analysis coverage.
With Ferrari already 145 points behind Mercedes and the Drivers’ Championship gaps growing, solving the qualifying weakness has become increasingly important. Even marginal improvements could influence several grid positions in such a tightly matched field, and the current software limitation appears to be costing Charles Leclerc more than Lewis Hamilton when Ferrari needs both drivers extracting everything available from the SF-26.
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