Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur has explained how the Scuderia’s 2026 Spanish Grand Prix strategy was partly built around the possibility of a Safety Car or Virtual Safety Car, after Charles Leclerc finished fourth in Madrid and Lewis Hamilton retired with a brake-system problem after only two laps.
Ferrari tried to create an opportunity at the inaugural Spanish Grand Prix at Madring — or, more accurately, hoped that circumstances would eventually play into its hands. The new layout did not produce the race many had expected and instead resulted in a distinctly uneventful Grand Prix, making track position and strategy particularly important.
The Scuderia had started the weekend positively, showing solid performance on Friday before losing some ground on Saturday and, above all, on Sunday. As Fred Vasseur explained after the 57-lap race, Ferrari was missing that extra step which could have allowed the SF-26 to perform more strongly, particularly in qualifying. That followed a weekend in which the team had already been evaluating different aerodynamic solutions for the Madrid circuit.
Ferrari Spanish GP strategy built around different tyre choices
Ferrari adopted different strategies for its two drivers. Charles Leclerc started on the hard tyre and managed to take the compound almost to the end of the race before switching to softs with around ten laps remaining. The Monegasque found himself at the front during the VSC phase, but because he still had to make the mandatory tyre change, he eventually had to pit after an excellent stint that had also benefited from running in clean air. He ultimately finished fourth.
It was a completely different race for Lewis Hamilton. The seven-time world champion started on the soft tyre, but his race lasted only two laps before a brake problem forced him to retire. The result left the British driver with only disappointment and the frustration of being unable to contest the race or score valuable championship points. The braking system had already been identified as an important technical consideration ahead of the weekend, with Madrid presenting significant braking demands for the 2026 cars.
Fred Vasseur: ‘We weren’t lucky’ with Ferrari’s Madrid gamble
Speaking to Sky after the Spanish Grand Prix, Fred Vasseur briefly analysed Ferrari’s race in Madrid and the areas where the SF-26 had fallen short. His first focus was the Maranello team’s strategy, from the tyre choices to the hopes behind the pit wall.
“We weren’t lucky, that’s true. We knew that almost all the cars were starting on the medium or soft tyre, so with one car we started on the hard compound. Charles did a very good first stint on his compound, then we were expecting a Virtual Safety Car or the actual Safety Car to come out.”
Vasseur added: “Before the race we were saying to ourselves that there would be at least two Safety Cars, and instead not even one came out. We tried: the pace was there and Lewis’s stint on the hards was really very good. We know that in the end the timing of the pit stop wasn’t ideal because of traffic, but when you finish fourth it changes very little.”
The strategy highlighted how difficult Ferrari expected overtaking to be and why keeping Charles Leclerc on track offered a potential route towards a much bigger result. The SF-26 had shown characteristics before the weekend that suggested Ferrari could be better suited to Madring than Monza, but qualifying position ultimately limited what could be achieved in the race.
Why Ferrari kept Charles Leclerc on hard tyres for 49 laps
Charles Leclerc completed 49 laps on the hard compound. Ferrari delayed his stop partly because it continued to hope for a Safety Car, but also because his race had effectively become a battle against George Russell. The objective was to defend the position and give Charles Leclerc the opportunity to emerge ahead of the Mercedes driver once the pit-stop sequence was completed.
“In the middle phase we were racing against the clock with George Russell. Russell still had to stop for a second time and we didn’t know exactly when he would come into the pits. In the end, we were on hard tyres that were maintaining an excellent pace, so we had to keep him in that position and see how the race developed.”
Vasseur continued: “We set up the race hoping that a Safety Car period would arrive: in that case we would have been on course to even fight for the victory. Without any neutralisations, we had to settle for fourth place.”
Leclerc therefore spent most of the race extending the life of the hard compound without having particularly clear reference points around him. Despite the difficulty of the task, Vasseur was highly satisfied with the performance of the Ferrari driver.
“It’s certainly difficult, but he had his pace and he was sticking to it perfectly,” the team principal explained. “We were focusing solely on those lap times and there was no point speculating about different options. Honestly, Charles did an excellent job, extremely solid: he didn’t make a single mistake in 49 laps while pushing like crazy on those tyres and I think today we extracted the maximum possible from the car. If we were missing something this weekend, it was the qualifying set-up on Saturday.”
The long opening stint became one of the defining elements of Charles Leclerc’s Spanish Grand Prix, but without the neutralisation Ferrari had been waiting for, the strategic gamble could not produce anything better than fourth place.
Ferrari still investigating Lewis Hamilton’s brake failure
Attention then shifted to the other side of the Ferrari garage. Lewis Hamilton’s Spanish Grand Prix lasted just two laps before the team retired his SF-26 because of the braking problem, and Vasseur admitted Ferrari did not yet have a definitive explanation for the failure.
“We don’t have a definitive picture yet, but it was a problem with the braking system. Lewis felt a loss of braking efficiency in one braking zone and then a second failure immediately afterwards. At that point we immediately decided to stop the car in the pits, because on a track like Monza, with braking from more than 350 km/h, it is simply too dangerous to continue.”
Vasseur concluded: “It’s a shame, because he was really having a great race.”
The retirement ended any opportunity for Lewis Hamilton to add points in Madrid, while Charles Leclerc’s fourth place represented the maximum Ferrari could extract from a strategy that depended heavily on a race neutralisation that never delivered the hoped-for advantage.
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