The deployment theory, dismissed
Under the 2026 rules, close to half of a Formula 1 car’s power now comes from its electrical side. That number has shaped most of the paddock’s theories about why Mercedes are quick and Ferrari are not, with rivals crediting the Brackley engine’s energy management and drivers reshaping their style around it.
Fred Vasseur has taken that explanation off the table for his own team. Ferrari’s problem, he says, starts earlier than deployment.
“I don’t want to give details, but when you have a lack of pure power, then you start to play with deployment to try to compensate in one straight line,” the Ferrari team principal told PlanetF1.com and accredited media.
“If you deploy more somewhere, for sure you will deploy less somewhere else, and then you are going in the wrong spiral to try to play with this when you are fighting. Honestly, it’s not about deployment. I think deployment was good. Even McLaren, they were playing a little bit Friday and Saturday morning. At the end, we are missing pure power.”
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Monza was a step, not a fix
Ferrari brought a power unit update to their home race under the Additional Development and Upgrade Opportunities scheme, the mechanism written into the new regulations to let trailing manufacturers close the gap. Red Bull’s internal combustion engine has been named the benchmark of the season so far, which tells its own story about where the Scuderia sit.
Vasseur wants expectations recalibrated. An engine is not a front wing.
“The process of the engine is mega long,” he said. “It’s not the chassis, on the chassis you can make an upgrade from one day to the other, and on the engine, the process is mega long because the lead time of the part is long and the cost cap is not easy. You have to produce the engine for the season, and if you want to start to do the development, you have to produce a new batch of engines.”
The horizon is 2027
Ferrari have a new engine coming next year, then two further ADUO windows in 2027. Vasseur is treating the current updates as small deposits rather than a rescue.
“We were not expecting to recover with ADUO 1 or ADUO 2. We are doing small steps, but what you have to keep in mind is that even if you make a couple of horsepower, it’s a good step on the grid,” he said. “The target is to catch up as soon as possible, but I was not expecting that within two months we will recover the delta with Mercedes.”
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