Fred Vasseur stated that Ferrari intends to maintain an intense pace of updates in the second half of the 2026 Formula 1 season. The team principal acknowledged McLaren’s progress but emphasized that the Italian team will follow a different development philosophy.
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Analyzing the championship so far, Vasseur divided the first half of the year into two moments. According to him, Mercedes dominated the initial phase and even scored about 100 points more than Ferrari in four or five rounds, but the scenario changed after the Barcelona GP.
“After Spain, we reacted and scored more points than Mercedes in those four or five races,” he said. In the five rounds contested since Lewis Hamilton’s win in Spain, Ferrari was the team that scored the most points.
Despite the recovery, Vasseur acknowledged that there are still important areas to improve. “If I were to draw a conclusion based on Hungary, I would say we need to improve execution, although it has been good for us since the start of the season. We also know we need to evolve on the engine side and we will do that, even though power unit development has much greater inertia than the chassis,” he explained.
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At the Hungarian GP, Lando Norris secured McLaren’s first win of the year after the team brought a large update package to the Hungaroring. Vasseur admitted that the rival made a big leap but highlighted that Ferrari and McLaren adopt different methods.
“McLaren took a huge step, but they don’t have exactly the same philosophy. They bring big packages, and every time they present something they achieve significant progress,” he assessed. “We have a different approach, trying to bring new parts to each race.”
For Vasseur, the priority will be to maintain this development frequency when the season resumes at the end of August. “There are still many races ahead and we have room to improve the chassis in all areas. We need to keep this pace,” he concluded.
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