Ferrari will introduce a new power-unit step at Monza, but team principal Frederic Vasseur has warned that the improvement will not be enough to erase the performance gap to Mercedes at the Italian Grand Prix. Despite the cautious assessment, the Frenchman remains focused on maintaining the Scuderia’s development momentum and recreating the type of late-season recovery that took Ferrari into a title fight in 2024.
Speaking in an interview with La Gazzetta dello Sport, conducted by Giulia Toninelli, Vasseur outlined two closely connected priorities for Ferrari: extracting the benefits of the new engine specification at Monza while continuing to improve the consistency required to challenge Mercedes over the remaining races of the 2026 season.
Ferrari new engine for Monza represents a clear step forward
Expectations surrounding Ferrari’s new power unit have grown ahead of Monza, particularly after factory data indicated an increase in performance. However, Vasseur stressed that developing an engine during the season remains a complicated task because of the time and budget constraints under which Formula 1 teams operate.
The Ferrari team principal acknowledged that the upgrade represents meaningful progress, but he does not expect it to eliminate the existing deficit to Mercedes during the Italian Grand Prix weekend. Vasseur instead emphasised the importance of continuing to improve steadily and concentrating on the performance Ferrari can extract from its own package on track.
The development forms part of Ferrari’s broader Monza power-unit development programme. At a circuit where outright power and straight-line performance are especially significant, the new specification will provide an important indication of how much progress the Maranello team has made.
Nevertheless, Vasseur is deliberately keeping expectations under control. Ferrari may arrive at Monza with more power available, but the team principal believes the remaining performance difference is still too substantial for one technical step alone to completely change the competitive order.
Vasseur wants Ferrari to repeat its 2024 title comeback
While his assessment of the Monza upgrade was measured, Vasseur was considerably more ambitious when discussing Ferrari’s objectives for the closing phase of the championship. Rather than concentrating on the precise number of points separating Ferrari from Mercedes, he wants the team to focus on reproducing the progress achieved during the second half of 2024.
Vasseur recalled how Ferrari made substantial gains over the final ten races of that campaign, progressively reducing its deficit and remaining involved in the championship battle until the last event. His target for 2026 is to generate a similar trajectory by continuing to push development and producing a more consistent level of performance from race to race.
With the 2026 Formula 1 calendar entering its decisive stages, consistency could become as important as individual peaks in performance. Vasseur’s message is that Ferrari cannot allow its attention to be dominated by the championship arithmetic or by Mercedes’ current advantage.
Instead, the Scuderia intends to keep working on the areas it can control, with further progress depending on how effectively the team converts its development work into repeatable performance on track. Ferrari’s ongoing technical evolution can also be followed through ScuderiaFans’ Ferrari technical analysis coverage.
Monza therefore represents more than the debut of a new power unit for Ferrari. It is also the next test of whether the team can begin another sustained late-season push. Vasseur accepts that the Mercedes gap is unlikely to disappear during a single weekend, but his wider objective remains clear: continue improving, become more consistent and give Ferrari the best possible chance of remaining part of the title fight through the final phase of the season.
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