Fred Vasseur has opened up on how early Ferrari switched priority to its 2026 project.
Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur has revealed that the team switched its priority focus to its 2026 challenger towards the end of April, having seen the dominance of McLaren in the early rounds.
Vasseur acknowledged the psychological difficulty that has presented this season, heading through much of the year knowing the Scuderia would not be making aerodynamic improvements to the car, but he is confident in the team’s decision to make the early switch.
While development on the 2026 cars could not officially start until early January, teams have been spending all year working in tandem to varying degrees on developing their current 2025 cars, and looking ahead to the enormous regulation changes on the horizon in 2026.
Some teams, such as Red Bull, opted to develop their cars by bringing upgrades later into the season, but Vasseur revealed that, while Ferrari has still brought mechanical changes to the SF-25, early-season form prompted a team decision to change focus early on.
“We didn’t start in the best way with the double disqualification in China,” Vasseur said of the season to PlanetF1.com and others in Qatar.
“This cost us tons of points compared to the direct competitors and, quite early in the season, McLaren was so dominant in the first four or five events that we realised it will be very difficult for 2025.
“It means that we decided very early into the season, I think it was end of April, to switch to ’26. It was a tough call, and perhaps I also underestimated a little bit the call on the psychological side, because then when you have still 20 races to go, or 18 races to go, and you know that you won’t bring any aero development.
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“It’s quite tough to manage psychologically, but overall, we continue to push, we brought some mechanical upgrades, we are trying to do a better job on operation, and this is the DNA of our sport.
“We have to accept this. It was a call, I’m still confident with the call that we did, and it’s okay. Now, let’s fight for [Constructors’ Championship] P2 with these conditions.”
Vasseur confirmed both Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc were included in the decision to invest more wind tunnel time on the 2026 car, knowing of the sacrifice that only mechanical upgrades were able to be brought for the remainder of 2025 instead.
Both the chassis and power unit regulations are changing in Formula 1 next season, meaning all-new cars are heading into testing at the end of January.
As others took their own leaps onto their respective 2026 projects at different times, the Ferrari team boss assured it was a group choice to make use of its wind tunnel runs on next year’s project the team’s an early priority.
“This decision was shared by everybody into the team,” Vasseur confirmed.
“That means that, at one stage, you have a look on the championship, you say, ‘Okay, it would be very difficult to come back on McLaren with the delta pace, the delta points’, and you say, ‘Okay, at least [with] the resources that we have into the wind tunnel, let’s be focused on ’26’.
“In the other end, we can still continue to develop the mechanical side and to bring some upgrades on the car, except aero. And it’s what we did.
“It was a good exercise, honestly. For sure, the drivers, they were part of the of this decision because they are fully committed on the project, and it’s something that we have to share all together, that in this kind of situation, you have to act as a team, and it’s what we did in this stage of the season.”
Additional reporting by Mat Coch and Thomas Maher
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