Ferrari Team Principal Fred Vasseur has reflected on the Scuderia’s difficult weekend at the Red Bull Ring after Lewis Hamilton finished fifth and Charles Leclerc could manage only eighth. According to the Frenchman, Ferrari made a strategic mistake by focusing too much on Mercedes instead of racing against McLaren.
Even before arriving in Spielberg, Ferrari knew the Austrian Grand Prix would likely expose some of the SF-26’s biggest weaknesses. The characteristics of the Red Bull Ring, with its long straights and emphasis on power unit performance, made it one of the least favourable circuits on the calendar for the Maranello team.
While Lewis Hamilton salvaged fifth place, Charles Leclerc endured another frustrating afternoon, finishing only eighth. More concerning than the final result itself was the way Ferrari’s race gradually unraveled.
In trying to match the pace of George Russell’s Mercedes and Max Verstappen’s Red Bull during the opening stint, Ferrari pushed its tyres too aggressively, accelerating degradation and quickly falling away from the leading group. Only after switching to the soft compound did the SF-26 show glimpses of improved competitiveness.
Austria also marked the debut of Ferrari’s updated power unit, introduced following the team’s first available ADUO development token. However, Fred Vasseur had never expected the upgrade to instantly erase Ferrari’s performance deficit to Mercedes and Red Bull.
Fred Vasseur: “It takes time to recover an engine deficit”
“Clearly we’ve had an engine deficit since the beginning of the season. We knew it then and we still know it now. Even with ADUO, you can’t imagine having a magic wand that solves everything overnight. Improvement takes time, and when it comes to the engine, it requires even more time,” Fred Vasseur explained.
“We know where we stand, and the additional problem with a performance deficit is that when you’re racing other cars, you become even more vulnerable because you’re overtaken on the straights. So beyond the raw pace difference, you’re also losing track position, which makes life even more difficult. But that cannot become an excuse because just one week ago we achieved our objective with Lewis Hamilton’s victory in Barcelona. That simply means we failed to put everything together this weekend, and that’s disappointing.”
Ferrari focused too much on Mercedes
According to Fred Vasseur, Ferrari’s biggest mistake was trying to race Mercedes rather than concentrating on the teams it could realistically beat.
Mercedes and Max Verstappen’s Red Bull demonstrated race pace that Ferrari simply could not match. In attempting to keep up, the Scuderia overworked its tyres during the opening stint, leaving itself exposed to McLaren’s recovery.
“I don’t think we had the pace to fight Mercedes, and we probably overreacted with our strategy. We pushed too hard during the first part of the opening stint and used up the tyres far too quickly. We should have done a better job by focusing more on McLaren,” he admitted.
“This was always going to be a difficult circuit for us, and we knew that from the beginning. Barcelona featured a long sequence of high-speed corners, particularly from Turns 1 to 3, which suited the characteristics of our car much better.”
Charles Leclerc’s strategy also came under review
While Lewis Hamilton continued the encouraging form he has shown over recent race weekends, Charles Leclerc once again endured a particularly difficult Sunday.
“I think Charles Leclerc initially preferred a two-stop strategy, but then we changed the plan,” Fred Vasseur revealed. “That turned out to be the wrong decision. The Virtual Safety Car allowed him to pit, but honestly I believe the real mistake was spending too much time trying to race the Mercedes cars when we simply didn’t have their pace. That was our error. Had we managed the race differently, we could have finished ahead of the McLarens.”
Silverstone already offers Ferrari a chance to respond
In the space of just two weeks Ferrari has experienced both the high of victory in Barcelona and the disappointment of a difficult race in Austria. Despite the setback, Fred Vasseur remains calm and believes the team must focus on understanding what went wrong before next weekend’s British Grand Prix.
“As I said in Barcelona, we weren’t stupid before and we weren’t champions after that victory. Today I’ll say the opposite: we weren’t champions in Barcelona and we’re certainly not stupid now. Every race weekend tells a different story, with different conditions and different temperatures. Mercedes struggled in Barcelona and won here. When six or seven cars are separated by only a couple of tenths, the competitive order changes constantly. It’s perfectly normal that certain circuits favour one car and engine package more than another.”
“We need to react immediately next weekend by understanding what went wrong here because I don’t believe we put everything together properly. It all started on Friday, which simply wasn’t good enough from our side. We couldn’t complete our race simulations under the right conditions, and today we paid the price for that.”
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