Ferrari are continuing to develop the SF-26, but nobody at Maranello intends to become carried away by the team’s recent results or growing title expectations. Technical director Loïc Serra has adopted an extremely measured position, confirming that Ferrari’s major upgrades have performed as expected while warning that their true value can only be assessed against the progress made by Formula 1’s rival teams.
Speaking in an interview with Autosprint, Loïc Serra explained that modern Formula 1 is shaped by continuous development. Every update must therefore be considered alongside the improvements introduced elsewhere on the grid. For that reason, the French engineer believes a meaningful verdict on Ferrari’s season and the SF-26 will only be possible after the championship has ended.
Loïc Serra refuses to judge the Ferrari SF-26 too early
Loïc Serra does not want to assign a definitive rating to Ferrari while the championship remains in progress. The season has only reached its halfway point, and the constantly changing competitive order makes it difficult to determine the full value of the work completed at Maranello.
“A rating for this Ferrari? We will only be able to give one at the end of the season. We are halfway through the championship, and it is really too early to draw conclusions. What I am satisfied with is the dynamic within the team, because we have seen since the beginning of the year that teams progress in phases, introducing their updates in steps, and that this process is not synchronised.”
Ferrari’s technical director explained that one team can temporarily move ahead when it introduces a new development package, only to lose that advantage when its direct rivals respond with updates of their own.
“When a car incorporates new developments, it usually gains an advantage over its direct competitors. As a result, whoever is leading today takes a step backwards as soon as the others update their car. That is why I think we will only have a proper reference point and be able to give ourselves a rating at the end of the championship. In Formula 1, anyone who is not looking towards the future is inevitably destined to fail.”
The comments reflect a championship in which the competitive balance can change rapidly. Every upgrade package alters the relative performance of the cars, making it difficult to evaluate Ferrari’s progress without also considering what Mercedes, McLaren and the rest of the grid are developing at the same time.
That cautious assessment is consistent with Frédéric Vasseur’s measured mid-season verdict. The Maranello team may recognise the progress already achieved, but it is unwilling to treat recent gains as proof that the broader development battle has been won.
Ferrari’s Miami and Barcelona SF-26 upgrades met expectations
During the interview, Loïc Serra confirmed that Ferrari’s two principal SF-26 development packages delivered the performance expected by the engineers at Maranello. The upgrades introduced in Miami and Barcelona therefore achieved their technical objectives, even if the improvement was not always immediately visible when compared with Ferrari’s rivals.
“We introduced two major upgrade packages, in Miami and Barcelona, and both worked as expected. When we update the car, we expect a certain performance gain, but if the other teams do the same, the perceived effect from the outside is zero. The impact of a group of changes is always relative to what the others are doing.”
Loïc Serra suggested that the timing of Ferrari’s second major development package helped make its effect more noticeable because rival teams may not have introduced as much new material during the same period.
“When we introduced the second update, the other teams probably had not developed as many things in parallel. It is the progression of development that counts. We performed well in Barcelona, but it was not the same in Austria because, in the meantime, the others had also progressed.”
The explanation highlights one of the most complicated elements of contemporary Formula 1. Improving a car is not enough on its own because every gain must be measured against the rate at which the competition is advancing. An upgrade can work precisely as predicted in the wind tunnel, simulations and track data while producing little visible change in the running order if rival teams have found a similar amount of performance.
Ferrari have consequently adopted a race-by-race approach to SF-26 development, rather than assuming that one successful package will define the remainder of the campaign. Each new component forms part of an ongoing progression whose effectiveness can only be understood over several events.
Why Ferrari’s development gains remain relative
Loïc Serra’s assessment also explains why results can create a misleading impression of technical progress. A strong weekend does not necessarily mean that one team has established a lasting advantage, just as a more difficult race does not automatically prove that an upgrade has failed.
Ferrari’s performance in Barcelona showed that the SF-26 could respond positively to the latest developments. Austria then provided a different competitive picture because the other teams had continued improving their cars. The comparison therefore changes every time a rival introduces a new floor, wing, bodywork configuration or other significant development.
This relative nature of performance is one reason why Charles Leclerc has urged Ferrari to remain aggressive in the upgrade race. Under a new regulatory cycle, development can produce meaningful changes, but any advantage can disappear quickly when competitors respond.
The SF-26’s fluctuating competitiveness has also demonstrated that outright performance cannot always be explained by one isolated characteristic. Ferrari’s difficulties at the Hungarian Grand Prix, for example, required a broader examination of the package rather than attributing the result solely to aerodynamic load, as shown by the technical analysis of the SF-26’s Hungary weakness.
The Ferrari SF-26 began as a completely new project
Loïc Serra also rejected the idea that the SF-26 should be regarded as his personal creation. Ferrari’s technical director stressed that the car is the result of a collective effort involving a large group of specialists working throughout the Maranello organisation.
“I do not consider this car to be mine. It is instead the result of the work of a large team made up of many professionals. It is clearly the car to which I have devoted the most energy since arriving at Maranello, especially because it is completely new and marks the beginning of a new regulatory era, for which we had to start from a blank sheet of paper.”
The SF-26 was not simply an evolution of an established concept carried over from one season to the next. The new regulations required Ferrari to begin again across every area of the project, creating a car intended to provide the foundation for continued development throughout the regulatory cycle.
“It was not like developing a concept from one year to the next. At every level, it was a project that began from zero. It is a constantly evolving project and the subject of continuous development. Am I satisfied with this Ferrari? You can never be completely satisfied. You must always try to go further and push the limits.”
That collective approach also distributes responsibility throughout the technical organisation. Although Loïc Serra has invested more energy in the SF-26 than in any previous Ferrari project, he views the car as the product of the entire team rather than the work of one individual.
Ferrari will keep pushing the SF-26 beyond its current level
The final message from Maranello is clear: Ferrari intend to maintain their focus on improving the SF-26 without allowing individual results to alter the direction of the programme. Successful updates provide encouragement, but they do not remove the need to search continuously for further performance.
That philosophy also applies to Ferrari’s wider technical programme. The team is continuing to balance performance with durability as it prepares future developments, including reliability work connected to its planned Monza engine upgrade.
For Loïc Serra, the true judgement must wait until the end of the season. Only then will Ferrari be able to assess the full development path of the SF-26, compare it properly with the progress of its rivals and determine how successfully the team responded to the demands of Formula 1’s new regulatory era.
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