Just two weeks after Ferrari celebrated a breakthrough victory in Barcelona, the mood in Maranello has changed dramatically. The SF-26 looked uncompetitive throughout the Austrian Grand Prix, with Lewis Hamilton finishing fifth and Charles Leclerc crossing the line in eighth after a frustrating afternoon at the Red Bull Ring.
The Scuderia struggled for pace throughout the race, particularly on the long straights, where its engine deficit was once again exposed. While Ferrari introduced the first of its ADUO development tokens with an updated power unit, team principal Fred Vasseur stressed that the upgrade was never expected to transform the team’s fortunes overnight.
Fred Vasseur reflects on Ferrari’s disappointing Austrian Grand Prix
Speaking to Sky Sport F1 after the race, the Ferrari team boss admitted that the Austrian weekend highlighted several weaknesses, both in outright performance and in the team’s race execution.
“We have had an engine deficit since the beginning of the season. We knew it before and we still know it now. Even with the ADUO upgrade, you can’t expect a magic wand that suddenly fixes everything overnight. We will improve, but it will take time, and when it comes to the power unit, it takes even longer,” Fred Vasseur explained.
The Frenchman acknowledged that Ferrari’s lack of straight-line speed became even more apparent once the cars were involved in wheel-to-wheel battles.
“Beyond the performance deficit itself, when you’re fighting other cars you suffer even more because you’re being overtaken on the straights. But that cannot be an excuse, because last weekend we achieved our objective. That means we simply didn’t put everything together this weekend.
“It’s a shame because I don’t think we had the pace to fight the Mercedes cars, and we probably overreacted with our strategy. We pushed too hard during the first part of the tyre stint, destroying the tyres too early. We focused too much on Mercedes, even though we didn’t have the pace to fight them under these conditions. That was a mistake. If we had managed the race differently, I believe we could have finished ahead of the McLarens.”
Ferrari must learn from Austria before Silverstone
Vasseur also pointed to the characteristics of the Red Bull Ring, admitting it was always expected to be a difficult circuit for Ferrari compared to Barcelona.
“This was always going to be a difficult track for us, and we knew that beforehand. Barcelona features a much longer sequence of high-speed corners, where you’re constantly operating at the limit, and that suited our car much better.
“In any case, I wasn’t a champion after Barcelona, and I’m certainly not stupid today,” he added with a smile. “Every weekend tells a different story. The conditions change, the temperatures change, and so does the competitive order. Mercedes struggled last weekend and now they’re back to winning.
“The reality is that there are six or seven cars covered by just two tenths of a second, so it’s perfectly normal for certain tracks and conditions to suit one package or one engine more than another.”
Looking ahead, Vasseur believes Ferrari’s priority is to understand where the weekend went wrong before the British Grand Prix.
“We need to react at Silverstone by understanding what we failed to do this weekend. I don’t think we put everything together, starting with what I consider to have been a very poor Friday. We didn’t complete our long runs under the right conditions, and today we paid the price for that.”
With Silverstone only days away, Ferrari will hope the circuit layout plays more to the strengths of the SF-26 while the team continues working to unlock more performance from its upgraded power unit. Although the first ADUO package represents an important step in Ferrari’s development programme, Vasseur made it clear that solving the Scuderia’s engine deficit will require patience rather than instant results.
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