Why Ferrari is genuinely price getting enthusiastic about in F1 2026

If there was a champion of Components 1 pre-season testing, Ferrari can be celebrating proper now.

Sure, I can hear you, it’s solely testing. And sure, I do know we’ve been right here many instances earlier than. Ferrari has a checkered historical past on the subject of making a hype practice heading right into a season, solely to flatter to deceive when it issues most. However one thing feels totally different this time.

Even earlier than Charles Leclerc set a blistering tempo with a sequence of quickest instances on the sixth and remaining day of working in Bahrain, it had already been a powerful pre-season for the Scuderia. 

Ferrari’s near-bulletproof reliability and unbelievable mileage had caught the attention of its rivals, as had its very sturdy race tempo and rocket begins. The Italian outfit’s solely actual blemish on an in any other case fairly flawless check got here on Thursday morning when Lewis Hamilton was sidelined by gremlins for 3 hours. 

However each staff has run into issues in some kind or one other all through the 2 weeks of working in Sakhir. 

On Friday, Leclerc offered the leisure with some hair-raising moments as he steadily chipped away on the quickest time, decreasing the benchmark on a number of events. 

The Monegasque, identified for his searing one-lap tempo, stretched the legs of his SF-26 because the solar set and pumped in a time on C4 tyres that was 0.879s faster than world champion Lando Norris, who positioned second with C3s bolted to his McLaren. Leclerc was the one man this week to creep into the 1m31s. 

Ferrari’s 2026 challenger seems to be an actual enchancment on its predecessor. Leclerc loved nice traction on his greatest lap of the day, and the SF-26 appeared connected with a robust front-end. Stability on nook exit enabled Leclerc to get the ability down rapidly and acquire essential time. 

Even when Leclerc got here near spinning with a wild second at Flip 11 on certainly one of his push laps, the 2026 Ferrari regarded a lot simpler to save lots of in comparison with final yr’s challenger, which was an actual handful. 

The small nods of acknowledgement and smiles from the mechanics within the Ferrari storage after Leclerc repeatedly lit up the timing screens instructed a narrative. 

Expectation excessive after 2025 lows

After a frankly disastrous 2025 through which Ferrari seemingly may solely discover a technique to screw up, the significance of 2026 was not misplaced on the staff. Leclerc even stoked the stress on his personal facet by issuing a “now or by no means” rally cry for Ferrari on the finish of final yr.

Regardless of this large weight of expectation and scrutiny that lingers over the staff, the ambiance at Ferrari has been remarkably calm all through testing. 

2026 is undoubtedly a vital yr. Not solely is Ferrari’s F1 status at stake, however so too are the futures of its drivers. Leclerc is rising more and more pissed off at his beloved staff’s failure to provide a championship-winning automotive, whereas Hamilton noticed his dream transfer rapidly descend right into a nightmare debut season in purple. 

On the face of it, Ferrari’s determination to tug the plug on its 2025 improvement early so as to concentrate on 2026 seems to have been an impressed name, and the staff seems to be in a significantly better place to start out the yr after producing a baseline automotive that isn’t restricted by improvement potential. 

Ferrari staff principal Fred Vasseur insisted efficiency was not high of the agenda for the Scuderia at first of the Bahrain pre-season check, which made Leclerc’s headline-grabbing remaining day all of the extra intriguing. 

The Yr of the Horse for Ferrari in 2026?

It is very important stress the caveat that Bahrain is a really totally different circuit to Melbourne, which hosts the season-opening Australian Grand Prix in two weeks’ time. 

Simply because the Ferrari package deal, geared up with its smaller turbo, seems to be a machine to be reckoned with on this observe is not any assure that kind will translate at each venue F1 heads to in 2026. At energy hungry circuits like Silverstone and Spa-Francorchamps, it might be a really totally different story. 

Equally, headline lap instances from pre-season testing can be deceptive and needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. However based mostly on the info we now have collated from current weeks, which is all of the proof we now have to go off at this stage, there’s real trigger for optimism at Ferrari.  

Regardless of this, Vasseur is just not getting carried away and is eager to maintain expectations firmly grounded.

“Joyful sure however we now have to remember what was the goal initially. This was to do loads of mileage and I feel this went fairly properly to gather information to attempt to enhance session after session,” the level-headed Frenchman instructed F1TV on the finish of Friday. 

“It’s not efficiency associated and on the finish of the day we don’t know the gas a great deal of the others, we don’t know the engine mode. We don’t have the identical tyres. Let’s be targeted on ourselves to attempt to do a greater job in Melbourne and we are going to see the place we’re.”

Requested what he expects from the primary race, Vasseur replied: “I don’t wish to say that it doesn’t matter the end in Melbourne as a result of I desire to have end result than a nasty one. 

“However on the finish of the day I do know the event shall be so enormous through the finish of the season that crucial [thing] is the capability of the staff to develop, the capability of the staff to convey elements rapidly, way more than the efficiency of race one. We have to maintain the momentum by the season and be targeted on improvement.” 

Whether or not all the celebrities align within the Yr of the Horse stays to be seen. Whereas it’s too early to counsel Ferrari has a real shot of ending 20 years of damage, all of the early indicators level to a significantly better 2026 season.