Ferrari leaves the Red Bull Ring with far more questions than answers. After a promising second place in qualifying and the partially encouraging signs shown on Saturday, Charles Leclerc may have expected a very different race, even though Friday’s long-run simulations had already highlighted significant concerns.
Sunday’s Austrian Grand Prix brought some of the SF-26’s familiar weaknesses back into focus, particularly those already seen in Japan and Canada. Excessive rear tyre degradation made it impossible for Ferrari to match the pace of the leading teams throughout the race.
The Monegasque driver did not hide his disappointment after the chequered flag, explaining that the drop in performance compared to qualifying was obvious from the very opening laps. The setup direction Ferrari chose following Saturday’s running—based on the configuration that had worked successfully at the Red Bull Ring last season—appeared to restore confidence heading into qualifying. However, once the race began, the picture changed completely.
Leclerc: “The rear end was never there”
Charles Leclerc explained that the biggest issue was the behaviour of the rear of the SF-26, which forced him into repeated moments of oversteer and quickly overheated the rear tyres.
“We chose a setup direction similar to the one we used last year. It worked well in qualifying, but it was much less effective in the race. The rear end was never there, I was constantly sliding, and that led to significant overheating of the rear tyres. It was a really difficult race.”
Despite the disappointing result, Charles Leclerc insisted that Ferrari’s recently introduced upgrade package should not be blamed.
“In Barcelona we had one of the fastest cars in the race, and the upgrades worked. I don’t think that’s where the problem lies. These Formula 1 cars are incredibly sensitive to setup. If you fall outside the ideal operating window, you pay a huge price. Today we saw exactly that.”
His analysis reinforces the belief that the Ferrari SF-26 continues to possess considerable performance potential, but also an extremely narrow operating window. In other words, the priority is not necessarily introducing more upgrades, but gaining a deeper understanding of how to unlock the car’s performance consistently under different conditions.
That inevitably brings back the familiar phrase—”we need to understand”—which Ferrari fans have heard many times before and which inevitably raises concerns whenever it reappears.
“We need to understand these behaviours better and learn how to optimise the car. We have a lot of work to do before Silverstone, and I hope we’ll come back stronger as a team.”
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