Vasseur lays out Ferrari plan to challenge Mercedes in F1 2026

Ferrari is still “four- or five-tenths” off Mercedes, and Fred Vasseur is not convinced a looming engine rule tweak will change that.

Mercedes has dominated the early rounds of the F1 2026 championship, claiming two grands prix wins and the P1 at the Sprint in China, with the fast-starting Ferrari team second best on the track.

Ferrari: Compression ratio tweak won’t erase deficit to Mercedes

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1-2 in both grands prix, Mercedes has raced out to a 31-point lead over Ferrari in just two weeks, while George Russell and Kimi Antonelli are holding down first and second in the Drivers’ standings.

Although Ferrari has challenged Mercedes off the line, the SF-26’s smaller turbo giving the Scuderia the impetus at the starts, the W17 has a clear pace advantage over Ferrari and the rest of the field.

It has meant that while Ferrari can go back-and-forth with Mercedes in the opening laps, trading positions, once Mercedes breaks free of the one second needed to activate the overtake boost, Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc cannot keep up.

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“At the beginning we are fighting with the Mercs,” Vasseur told the media after the Chinese Grand Prix, “as long as we are in the one second, we can have the extra boost and so we are able to keep the pace.

“But as soon as they are making the one-second gap, it’s much more difficult.

“I think, we are pushing perhaps a bit more than them on the opening laps, and then after the first 10 laps, we are coming back to the four- or five-tenths a lap that they have.

“For sure, I would prefer to be a bit faster. But it is like it is,” he continued. “We know that we have a deficit of performance, mainly in the straight line that we have to work on.

“We are improving because we were eight-tenths off in Melbourne, six-tenths on Friday [in China], four-tenths on Saturday. Step by step, we are understanding a bit more the situation and closing the gap, but they are still far away.”

It raises the question: is it engine, chassis, or both?

That was put to Vasseur when he was asked to evaluate Ferrari’s chassis performance. The Frenchman says the performance of the car has to be measured as a whole, engine and chassis.

“It’s never easy to separate, and I think it’s even more difficult this year,” he explained.

“I think probably that more than in the past, it’s one package mixing chassis and engine, more than two separate elements, and it’s very difficult to split.

“We had the Sprint quali of Charles, and he got a huge D-rating and lost five-tenths in a straight line. But this is more management.

“I don’t want to do the split, I want to improve everywhere. We know that we have to improve on the ICE, but this will be for after the ADUO. On the chassis, we are pushing like hell on every single area to close the gap.”

It has been an impressive, although slightly controversial, start to the season for Mercedes, which arrived on the grid with an engine that rivals claimed exceed the mandated 16:1 compression ratio.

Mercedes High Performance Power Unit reportedly found a loophole in the wording of the regulation that means the compression ratio is recorded at 16:1 in ambient conditions, as per the wording of the rule, but increases to 18:1 in operating conditions.

That saw rivals push for the testing procedure to be amended, with a change set to be implemented on 1 June 2026.

From June, the compression ratio will be measured in both cold conditions and at 130°C operating temperature. From 2027 onwards, it will be assessed solely at 130°C.

PlanetF1.com understands the Mercedes power unit has already passed the June measurement process.

“I’m not convinced that the new compression ratio rule will be a game changer or a huge game changer,” said Vasseur.

“It’s more that you will have the ADUO at one stage, that the introduction of the ADUO will be an opportunity for us to close the gap.

“But once again, it’s not just about pure performance. I think you have a lot in energy management, a lot in the chassis. It would be a mistake from our side to be just focused on one parameter.”

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