Scuderia won two of the last five races and reduced its performance gap to Mercedes, but the absence of poles and fluctuations between circuits still cast doubt on a sustained fight until the end of the year.
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Ferrari arrived at the Formula 1 summer break in a considerably different position from that occupied in the first races of 2026. The team that started the championship trying to stay close enough to Mercedes to seize opportunities had, before the holidays, begun to create some of them.
Lewis Hamilton won in Barcelona. Charles Leclerc won in Silverstone. At Spa, a circuit that Ferrari itself did not expect to favor the SF-26, Leclerc finished just 1.952 seconds behind Kimi Antonelli. After six consecutive Mercedes wins at the start of the championship, Scuderia won two of the next five races.
The overall numbers also changed appearance. Ferrari enters the second half with 307 points, 72 behind Mercedes’ 379, along with two wins and nine podiums. Hamilton is second in the Drivers’ Championship with 169 points, while Leclerc is fourth with 138.
Is that enough to say Ferrari is back in the fight?
It depends on what is meant by competing.
The first half of 2026 has already shown that Hamilton and Leclerc can beat Mercedes on a Sunday. What has not yet been demonstrated is whether the SF-26 can offer that possibility on practically any Sunday.
That difference separates a team capable of winning races from a genuine championship contender.
Ferrari started well — but Mercedes was clearly ahead
The initial snapshot of the season was less negative than a reading based solely on wins might suggest.
In Australia, Leclerc finished third and Hamilton fourth. In China, Hamilton was third and Leclerc fourth. In Japan, the Monegasque returned to the podium. Ferrari had three podiums in the first three rounds.
But there was a clear difference between being close and actually having the conditions to control a race.
In Melbourne, Leclerc finished 15.519 seconds behind winner George Russell. In China, Hamilton crossed the line 25.267 seconds after Antonelli. In Japan, Leclerc was 15.270 seconds behind the Italian. Ferrari could occupy the positions immediately after the leaders but did not have Mercedes’ same ability to dictate the pace.
The internal assessment was similar. After Japan, Leclerc pointed to the power unit as the main weakness of the project, although he stressed that tires, aerodynamics, and chassis also contributed to the difference. Ferrari showed strength in corners but lost performance on the straights to Mercedes.
It was a particularly relevant limitation for 2026, when energy management and how electric power is delivered have an even greater influence on performance.
At the same time, there were virtues.
Ferrari showed particularly strong starts early on, and the chassis seemed to offer a good base in corners. Hamilton also demonstrated a much faster adaptation to the SF-26 than he had with his predecessor in 2025. After a difficult first year in Maranello, the Briton stated that the new car better matched his style.
The question was turning these characteristics into victory.
That started happening even before Barcelona.
Hamilton finished second in Canada and repeated the result in Monaco. Ferrari was not yet the reference but was regularly positioned to seize an opportunity.
Then came the first major upgrade package.
Barcelona was more than a circumstantial win
Ferrari brought important changes to the SF-26 for Barcelona. Interestingly, Friday did not suggest an immediate transformation: Hamilton even stated that the team was still considerably behind the fastest.
On Sunday, the perception changed.
Hamilton started second and Ferrari gambled on soft tires, while Russell started on pole with mediums. The Briton could not take the lead at the start, but the team anticipated his first stop and used a three-stop strategy to put pressure on Mercedes.
A Virtual Safety Car favored Hamilton’s last stop, but reducing his win to that circumstance would ignore the pace shown during the race.
The Ferrari was competitive during the stints, Hamilton managed to strategically attack Russell, and finished 19.561 seconds ahead of the Mercedes. The post-race analysis itself pointed to tire management and strategy as decisive factors.
It was the first concrete demonstration of something that had not happened in the first six rounds: Ferrari was not just waiting for Mercedes to fail.
It had built a way to beat them.
Were there favorable circumstances? Yes. Antonelli retired at the end while in second place, and the Virtual Safety Car helped Hamilton.
But the winner was not simply collecting a victory abandoned by the rival. The SF-26 had the pace to directly compete.
That difference is important.
And the evolution did not end in Barcelona.
For Austria, Ferrari also introduced an upgrade to the power unit within the additional development opportunities provided by the 2026 regulations.
The result, however, showed exactly why there were still reasons for caution.
Austria showed that Ferrari’s problem has not disappeared yet
Leclerc and Hamilton qualified second and third at the Red Bull Ring. It seemed the perfect opportunity to prove the evolution.
On Sunday, the opposite happened.
Hamilton finished only fifth and Leclerc dropped to eighth. Ferrari suffered from high tire degradation and difficulties on the straights, and both drivers ended up using a three-stop strategy that was not ideal.
Fred Vasseur was direct after the race: the main problem had been lack of pace, not strategy.
The importance of that weekend for this analysis is huge.
Two weeks after beating Mercedes by almost 20 seconds in Barcelona, Ferrari was clearly inferior again.
It is exactly this oscillation that still prevents placing the SF-26 on the same level as the W17.
Mercedes may not be dominant on every circuit, but it has shown the ability to fight for victory on practically all of them.
Ferrari has not yet.
But the next two rounds would again change the analysis.
Leclerc turned evolution into results
Silverstone was a kind of response to the Red Bull Ring.
Leclerc started on the front row and took the lead from Antonelli at the first corner. The race had different events — including problems with the Italian’s Mercedes and Verstappen’s retirement — but the Monegasque stayed ahead and claimed his first win of 2026.
Hamilton completed the podium in third. Ferrari put two cars in the top three and scored 40 points just in the Grand Prix, in addition to those earned in the Sprint.
The result had additional technical significance.
Silverstone should not have been one of the ideal tracks for the SF-26.
The long high-speed sections and the importance of efficiency exposed precisely one of the areas where Ferrari still had a disadvantage to Mercedes.
Spa took that observation even further.
Vasseur admitted that Ferrari did not expect to be so competitive in Belgium. Even so, Leclerc finished second, just 1.952 seconds behind Antonelli. Hamilton was fourth, despite carrying a five-second penalty after contact with Russell on the first lap.
Vasseur pointed to the work on the chassis and the sequence of upgrades as signs that Ferrari was closing the gap in small steps.
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It is perhaps the most convincing evidence of evolution available before the holidays.
Barcelona could be interpreted as a favorable combination of pace, tires, and strategy.
Silverstone had incidents that altered the race.
But Spa presented something different: on a theoretically unfavorable track, Leclerc simply managed to stay close to Mercedes during the race.
When Antonelli crossed the line, there was less than two seconds between them.
At the start of the championship, Ferrari finished 15 or 25 seconds behind.
This comparison is not a scientific measure of evolution — each race has completely different circumstances — but it is a fairly clear indication that the SF-26 that arrived at Spa was a more dangerous opponent than that of the early rounds.
The problem remains Saturday
There is, however, a statistic hard to ignore.
Ferrari: two wins, nine podiums, and no pole positions.
Mercedes: eight wins, 14 podiums, and ten poles.
Perhaps no comparison shows the difference between the two teams better.
In race pace, Ferrari has managed to substantially reduce its disadvantage on some circuits. In qualifying, it has not yet been the reference.
This creates two problems.
The first is obvious: Hamilton and Leclerc often need to start races behind at least one Mercedes.
The second is specific to 2026 Formula 1. Starting behind means needing to use energy to attack instead of control the race, as well as increasing exposure to traffic and reducing strategic options.
There have been recent signs of closing the gap.
In Austria, Leclerc and Hamilton started second and third. Leclerc also started on the front row in Silverstone. In Hungary, Hamilton was only 0.012 seconds behind Norris in Q3 before his penalty, while Leclerc ended up starting second.
But the zero in the poles column remains.
If Ferrari really intends to turn the recovery into a fight for both championships, this is probably the indicator that needs to change in the second half.
It is not enough to win when the race creates opportunities.
It is necessary to start creating those opportunities on Saturday.
Hungary showed there is still a narrow window
The last weekend before the holidays theoretically offered a great opportunity.
The Hungaroring should favor the SF-26. Ferrari led Friday’s activities and appeared as one of the favorites for pole and victory.
It ended with Leclerc in fourth and Hamilton in fifth.
Ferrari chose to start on soft tires while some close rivals used mediums. The attempt to gain positions immediately did not work. Leclerc lost ground on the first lap and, in a race that quickly got out of the team’s control, neither car reached the podium.
Vasseur summed up Sunday by saying that practically everything had gone wrong.
Hungary is almost as important for evaluating Ferrari as Spa.
Spa showed that the car can be competitive even where it theoretically should suffer.
Budapest showed that a theoretically favorable track does not guarantee results.
This combination indicates a car that has evolved significantly but whose operating window still does not seem as wide as Mercedes’.
Hamilton and Leclerc have also become a Ferrari force
Another element strengthens Scuderia’s candidacy.
It has two drivers producing important results.
Hamilton arrives at the break with 169 points, in second place in the championship. Leclerc has 138 and is fourth. The difference is 31 points.
In Grand Prix races, Hamilton has one win and five podiums. Leclerc has one win and four podiums. The Briton scored 151 points exclusively in the main races; Leclerc, 117. The rest came from Sprints.
The distribution also tells part of the story.
Hamilton was more consistent during the first half and remains Antonelli’s closest rival in the World Championship.
Leclerc had a more irregular campaign: two consecutive retirements in Monaco and Barcelona, marked difficulties in Canada, and a poor Austria. But the subsequent reaction was significant — win in Silverstone, second in Spa, and fourth in Hungary.
Therefore, Ferrari does not depend on just one car.
This is crucial for the Constructors’ Championship and offers strategic options that teams more dependent on a single driver do not have.
The numbers show evolution, but not a complete transformation
The points help put perception into perspective.
Considering only the Grand Prix races, Ferrari scored 137 points in the first six races, an average of 22.8 per round.
In the next five, it scored 131 points, or 26.2 per race.
The average points per GP increased by about 15%.
More relevant than that, the quality of results changed.
In the first six rounds: no wins.
In the next five: two wins.
And, in this second block, only one team won more races? None. Mercedes also won two — Austria and Belgium — while McLaren won in Hungary.
In other words: since Barcelona, Ferrari has ceased to be just the second force in points to effectively share wins with the team that dominated the start of the championship.
That is real progress.
But there is an equally important fact: even with this recovery, Mercedes still has a 72-point lead in the Constructors’ Championship.
Hamilton is 50 points behind Antonelli among the drivers.
To turn technical closeness into a mathematical title fight, therefore, Ferrari will need to do more than just keep the current pace.
It needs to start regularly taking points from Mercedes.
After all, is Ferrari already a title contender?
There are three possible answers.
1. Is Ferrari already a contender?
In terms of speed to win races, yes. Barcelona, Silverstone, and Spa eliminated the idea that the team can only win when Mercedes disappears. The SF-26 already has enough pace to beat the W17 under certain conditions.
2. Can Ferrari become a championship contender?
Also. Perhaps this is the scenario that best describes the current situation. The upgrades have produced progress, Hamilton is second in the World Championship, and Leclerc found a strong sequence before the holidays. If the development trend continues and the qualifying gap decreases, the second half could turn an occasional threat into a regular fight.
3. Does Ferrari still depend on Mercedes’ problems?
To win an isolated race, not necessarily anymore.
To win the championship in the current scenario, it probably still depends on some degree of decline from the rival.
Mercedes has a 72-point lead among constructors and Antonelli leads Hamilton by 50 among drivers. Also, ten of the 11 poles belong to the W17.
That difference means that just continuing to win eventually will not be enough.
Ferrari needs to turn the exception into routine.
The first half of 2026 showed that it has already found a way to beat Mercedes.
The question for the remaining 12 rounds is much harder: can it find that way almost every weekend?
It is this answer — and not the two wins already achieved — that will determine if Ferrari has really returned to the title fight.
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