Ferrari turned up to the Austrian Grand Prix with a shiny new engine upgrade and spent most of Friday telling everyone not to get excited about it. Which, credit where it is due, is at least honest.
No Magic Bullets, No Revolution
Charles Leclerc was admirably blunt when asked about the significance of the Scuderia’s first ADUO upgrade. His verdict: do not expect miracles.
“We don’t expect magic bullets unfortunately. It’s not a revolution, but it’s a step in the right direction.” – Charles Leclerc
Team principal Fred Vasseur went further, revealing that Ferrari had been developing the upgrade for months before knowing whether they would even qualify for one. Under the ADUO system, Red Bull was unexpectedly named the benchmark engine, with Ferrari, Audi and Honda measured as more than four percent off the pace, entitling them to two upgrades. Had Ferrari been named the benchmark instead, all that early development spend would have hit the cost cap with nothing to show for it.
“It was very risky for us to launch the ADUO very early for cost cap reasons. It means that we are not expecting at all a big step this weekend.” – Fred Vasseur
So Ferrari bet on losing the ADUO lottery, won, and still cannot promise meaningful gains. Quite the situation.
Friday Was a Struggle, Full Stop
The Red Bull Ring, with its fast, sweeping layout and lap times dipping under 1m10s, is not Ferrari territory. The Scuderia thrives in slow-speed corners, and there are precious few of those in Spielberg. Leclerc gave up his FP1 seat to Ferrari junior Dino Beganovic, then ended FP2 a subdued eighth, 0.841 seconds adrift. Lewis Hamilton, the Barcelona winner, was fifth and still almost six-tenths behind Kimi Antonelli.
Leclerc’s diagnosis was simple and rather grim: “Just overall grip, we’ve been sliding from all four tyres since the first lap.” Not exactly the kind of confidence boost a team needs heading into qualifying.
The Longer Game
A second upgrade, reportedly a revised turbo, is pencilled in for after the summer break. That is where Ferrari’s real hope lies. Mercedes currently lead the constructors’ championship by 72 points, and the FIA has already moved to close down one of Ferrari’s aerodynamic tricks for 2027, so the pressure to find power unit performance is only growing.
Verdict
Ferrari deserve credit for acting quickly under ADUO and for being refreshingly candid about the upgrade’s limitations. But candour does not close a 72-point gap. If the second upgrade after the summer break is also “relatively minor”, this title fight will be over long before the season is.
