Frederic Vasseur believes Ferrari’s biggest problem is not the outright potential of the SF-26 but its inability to execute race weekends perfectly, after another promising opportunity ended without a podium at the 2026 Dutch Grand Prix. The Ferrari team principal pointed to pit-stop problems, tyre management and crucial race decisions as areas where the Scuderia continues to give away valuable points.
Zandvoort brought considerable regret for Ferrari because the weekend closely mirrored what had happened at the Hungaroring. Just as in Budapest, the SF-26 began the event looking capable of challenging for victory but finished the Grand Prix outside the top three. In the Netherlands, mistakes on the pit wall and in the pits also contributed to keeping Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc away from the podium.
Frederic Vasseur focuses on Ferrari’s execution problems
Frederic Vasseur is not questioning the potential of the car. Ferrari’s race pace could perhaps have been comparable with Kimi Antonelli and Lando Norris had Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc not initially been held up by Oscar Piastri and later George Russell. The Frenchman instead continues to focus on execution, which he sees as the Scuderia’s real limitation.
Slow pit stops, tyre management, decisions at key moments of the race and qualifying positions that leave the drivers too far down the order are all continuing to cost Ferrari important points. It is an issue Vasseur had already emphasised while setting out Ferrari’s approach to the Dutch Grand Prix, where maximising the available package was considered crucial.
“So far this season, sometimes we didn’t expect to get good results, while other times we thought we could do better and we struggled more,” the Ferrari team principal said after the Dutch Grand Prix. “I think there is much more in the execution than in the pure potential.”
“Today the execution wasn’t good. The second start wasn’t as quick as the first despite the soft tyre, and we had a poor pit stop,” he added. “The best lesson from this weekend is that, if you want to win and you want to be at the front, you have to do a perfect job. It applies to us, but it applies to the others as well. There is the possibility of going from P1 to P6 depending on good or bad execution.”
Ferrari must maximise SF-26 potential before chasing more performance
Frd Vasseur’s message to Ferrari is therefore clear: before searching for even more outright performance, the team first needs to optimise what it already has. Ferrari introduced further aerodynamic performance through the new SF-26 floor and aerodynamic package at Zandvoort, but unlocking those gains consistently over an entire weekend remains just as important as adding new parts.
Further performance is also expected to arrive with the engine update linked to ADUO-2 at Monza, part of Ferrari’s planned power-unit step for the Italian Grand Prix. Yet Vasseur’s point is that additional performance alone will not solve Ferrari’s problems if operational mistakes continue to prevent the team from extracting the maximum from its package.
It is a principle everyone at Maranello knows well, but one Ferrari continues to find extremely difficult to apply consistently. Zandvoort provided another example: the potential was present, but imperfect execution once again prevented the Scuderia from turning that pace into the result it wanted.
