According to Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur, the balance after the Australian Grand Prix is positive, despite some clear gaps to Mercedes.
Looking ahead to China
“Would I have signed for third and fourth place? The competitor in me says no, but my more rational and pragmatic side gladly takes the podium and the points, especially since we have a very long list of things to improve and we also know how,” Fred Vasseur told the French magazine Auto Hebdo, reflecting on Ferrari’s first weekend of the season. For him, the glass is half full.
“There wasn’t an eight-tenth gap in qualifying between us and Mercedes,” added Ferrari’s team principal. “I believe the Mercedes advantage was around three to four tenths. That’s why, even if we had stopped in the pits at the same time as them during the Virtual Safety Car, we probably could have held our position for another ten laps before yielding. In Australia, Mercedes was ahead of us, and we were ahead of Red Bull and McLaren, although there will be continual reshuffles and performance fluctuations.”
Early assessments and the first real benchmark
Fred Vasseur emphasized that a comprehensive assessment can only be made after three races on three different circuits with different tyres: “Australia was certainly not a track suited to the Ferrari SF-26, with that long section without braking where you had to somehow manage the energy,” he explained. “In China, everything will be different. It will be much colder, and as in Bahrain there will be many long straights, but also plenty of braking zones where the battery can be recharged. Right now, we are only talking about energy management, but other factors, such as tyre wear, haven’t disappeared. In China, we will need to carefully monitor graining.” – the French manager concluded.
The 2026 Formula 1 season now moves toward Shanghai and the focus remains on how the Scuderia can optimize the SF-26‘s hybrid deployment in more favorable conditions. While the high-speed flow of Melbourne exposed the car’s current energy recovery limitations, the “stop-and-go” nature of the Chinese circuit should allow Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton to stay closer to the dominant Mercedes pace. Fred Vasseur’s pragmatic approach highlights a team that is not panicking, but rather methodically working through its “long list” of improvements to bridge the gap to the front of the grid. The battle for the championship is only just beginning, and the technical diversity of the next few tracks will reveal the true potential of Maranello’s latest challenger.
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