Ferrari Mid-Season Review: Fast but not flawless
- Jason Sharp
- 16 minutes ago
- 6 min read
As we prepare to head into the second half of the 2026 Formula One season after a lengthy summer break, our F1 writers take you through the state of play with each team on the grid. A regulation change to capitalise on was exactly what Ferrari needed in their bid to end their title drought, and the prancing horse has come charging out of the gates. The Scuderia have shown huge promise, but there’s still room for refinement.
Ferrari’s Team Principal Fred Vasseur decided that the Scuderia would switch focus to the 2026 regulations as early as April last year - a major disappointment at the time for the most popular and successful team in F1.
Come pre-season testing however, it was clear that their focus had paid dividends.
The red cars were one of the biggest talking points in the paddock; they’d taken a bold approach to the new rulebook and brought innovations that other teams would later try to adopt, such as their exhaust winglets and the upside-down ‘Macarena’ rear wing. Such things haven’t been said about Ferrari for many years, and there was serious optimism both from the team and the tifosi.
How has Ferrari Fared so far in 2026?
Despite having a power unit deficit and still showing signs of weakness at times with their race weekend execution, the Scuderia have been the closest rivals to the mighty Mercedes; and in some areas, they’ve started the season as the class of the field.
They have arguably the best chassis, their aerodynamic upgrades were impressively frequent, and their small turbo made the prancing horse superior off the line particularly in the opening races.
Both Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc scored multiple podiums across the first few races and Ferrari were in a very comfortable second place ahead of the struggling McLarens and Red Bulls.
Come the summer break, the Maranello outfit sat right behind the leading Mercedes in the Constructors’ Championship with 307 points, 72 points behind the Silver Arrows with better reliability keeping them in the mix. Both of their drivers have won a race, and a rejuvenated Hamilton is currently the biggest outside championship rival to Kimi Antonelli, trailing his Mercedes successor by 50 points.
Drivers' Head-to-Head Performance
The comparison between the drivers is a completely different story to last season. Leclerc dominated the new arrival of Hamilton in 2025: 18-3 across all races that they both finished; scoring 242 points to Hamilton’s 156.
This year is a much closer battle between one of the strongest pairings on the grid with very little pace difference between them. It’s currently 6-5 to Leclerc across qualifying this season, 6-5 to Hamilton across the Grands Prix, and 2-2 from the sprint races.
Hamilton has amassed five podiums to Leclerc’s four, and the seven-time World Champion sits second in the Driver’s Championship while Leclerc sits in fourth. The pair have one win apiece to their names this season, Hamilton’s coming in Barcelona and Leclerc’s at Silverstone.
But as ever in F1, the statistics never tell the full story, and there are many variables in their respectful rivalry this year.
Leclerc has suffered two retirements this year, once in his home race of Monaco due to a late-race accident during a Safety Car restart, and again towards the end of the race in Barcelona caused by a hydraulic issue. Hamilton, meanwhile, has finished in the points at every round so far, and is the only driver on the grid to have completed every racing lap.
Best Moments
The standout best moment for Ferrari so far in 2026 has to be Hamilton’s win in Barcelona. Any driver’s first win for Ferrari is a deeply special and emotional moment, but the circumstances of this one made it even more so.
Hamilton had started 30 races for Ferrari before securing his maiden victory for the Scuderia; he endured a win-less, and even podium-less season throughout 2025 and was mentally at the lowest point in his entire career.
The move to Ferrari after 14 years at Mercedes just didn’t seem to be working. He couldn’t adapt to the car that he had no involvement with through development, he had many tense exchanges with his then race engineer, Ricky Adami after a long and successful relationship with Peter Bonnington at Mercedes, and ultimately, the statistically greatest driver in F1 history was just lost.
Many thought that Hamilton had passed his prime and that it was time for him to hang up his helmet, and the Briton himself may have thought about this too when after a tough session he was calling himself “useless” and that the team needed to change the driver.
The crucial turnaround would come in 2026 after what Hamilton called a “sequence of unplugging from that matrix” over the winter break.
The ground effect cars that he couldn’t gel with over four years were no more and the new aerodynamic regulations returned to the type of car which suited his driving style: being able to brake late, and rotate the car through a corner whilst maintaining a level of speed that does not compromise the exit.
He ditched the simulator, opting to trust his natural feeling for the car instead, and he had great influence over how the team operated, including the replacement of Adami, his race engineer now being Carlo Santi.
Hamilton has expressed that he enjoys this set of regulations and his results have proved that no driver skill is lost on the 41 year old. After his win in Barcelona, Vasseur deemed it “very outstanding” and that Hamilton was “his old self again”.
There was a similar sense of redemption after a winning drought was broken following Leclerc’s victory at Silverstone just two rounds later. The Monégasque had not won a Grand Prix since the Circuit of the Americas back in 2024. After winning the race, which Ferrari didn’t expect to do well at, Leclerc said “the feeling is back where it needs to be”.
Both of these wins were achieved on pure merit and race pace, which is a hugely promising sign of things to come, and a much needed morale boost for the entire team.
Worst Moments
While Leclerc’s crash in the chaotic closing stages of the Monaco Grand Prix was a heartbreaking blow in front of his home crowd, the biggest disappointment for Ferrari as a team so far this season was the Austrian Grand Prix.
Coming off the back of their victory in Barcelona, their hope for direct push of momentum was high, and prospects looked promising after Leclerc and Hamilton qualified second and third respectively.
But come the race, both cars suffered badly with tyre degradation in the heat and resorted to a three stop strategy with both cars. Hamilton would finish the race in fifth, and Leclerc down in eighth after starting on the front row.
There was a similar disappointing race execution in Hungary, a low speed, twisty track where the SF-26 was the favourite to win. On race day, the choice to use soft tyres instead of mediums backfired, and the team had no mediums for the race as they’d been used up in qualifying.
Hamilton lost track position at the start, and again through a messy pit stop, then a speeding penalty in the pit lane dropped him completely out of contention, leaving both cars outside the podium in fourth and fifth.
Looking Ahead
Ferrari have made an incredible leap forward from their disastrous season in 2025. They have capitalised the most on the regulations overhaul bar only Mercedes, but the Ferrari has been the better car in some areas.
Throughout the first half of this season, they have been the team to take the fight to the fast but fragile Mercedes, with the SF-26’s strong reliability and Hamilton’s consistency keeping them in the mix.
There remains a possibility that Hamilton could still win this World Championship. He certainly knows how to win them, and has a tendency to excel in the latter parts of the season, thriving under pressure. He easily has an advantage over the 19-year-old Antonelli in this regard and most importantly, has nothing to lose.
However, the Scuderia must capitalise and extract the absolute maximum if things go wrong for Mercedes in the form of reliability, penalties, failed upgrades or accidents. The most recent weekend in Hungary was another sign that Ferrari’s execution come race day is still their weakest aspect. Hamilton’s gap to Antonelli in front could be smaller if the mistakes in Austria and Hungary hadn’t happened.
The maths certainly show that the championship is possible, but whether Ferrari are ready to win a World Championship is a different question. They have made enormous steps forward, but they still occasionally make costly mistakes like they have done in previous years.
There is also the question of if Ferrari can keep their performance advantage over their rivals. Being completely outperformed by the McLaren of Lando Norris in Hungary is a worrying sign that their pace advantage may not continue in the second half of the season.
Time will tell if McLaren can keep this performance, if Mercedes will falter, and if the Scuderia can build upon their momentum.
Edited by Meghana Sree
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