Ferrari arrived at Spa looking reasonably composed after FP1. By the end of FP2, Fred Vasseur was talking about 20 km/h speed swings between cars on the same straight, and Lewis Hamilton was ordering a deep dive into the data. Not exactly the Friday script the Scuderia had in mind.
The Numbers That Sting
Vasseur was refreshingly blunt after Friday’s running. Energy management at Spa has always been a puzzle, but the 2026 power units have cranked that complexity up to a genuinely absurd level. His assessment was striking: cars are arriving at certain straights up to 20 km/h slower than rivals, then somehow hauling back 15 km/h on the next one. It sounds chaotic because it essentially is.
“We’ve seen it in race trim today, that there are huge speed differences between the cars. You can be 20 km/h slower than the opposition on one straight, and then 15 km/h faster on the next.” – Fred Vasseur
He put it down to wildly different deployment strategies: drivers attacking or defending their energy stores in real time, creating a lottery of relative pace from corner to corner. As he noted, the engines are broadly delivering similar raw electrical output. What differs is how intelligently each driver and team uses it. Red Bull have their own energy headaches at Spa this weekend, so at least Ferrari has company.
Hamilton’s Sector Two Problem
Lewis Hamilton was the best Ferrari on Friday, finishing fourth in FP2, but over seven tenths down on Kimi Antonelli. Nearly six tenths of that deficit came in the middle sector alone. Hamilton insisted the straights were not the core concern, pointing instead to a downforce imbalance in the technical second sector.
“It feels a little bit downforce-related. The balance is good in general. You would have more load on the car if you could, but then you need the speed on the straights. So we will do a deep dive tonight to figure out how we can pick up that middle sector and not lose in the others.” – Lewis Hamilton
Charles Leclerc had a considerably worse afternoon, failing to crack the FP2 top ten. Ferrari’s rivals were busy too, with Gasly crashing and Russell struggling behind Antonelli, but neither fact makes the Italian team’s sector two deficit any less real.
Vasseur’s Friday Shrug
To his credit, Vasseur deployed the classic team principal deflection: Friday tells you nothing. He is not entirely wrong. Grid positions are not decided on Friday, and fuel-corrected pace is notoriously difficult to read. But when your car is haemorrhaging nearly six tenths in a single sector, the overnight homework had better be thorough.
Ferrari sit second in the constructors’ standings, 78 points behind Mercedes. A muddled qualifying at Spa could make that gap look even more stubborn. The deep dive had better surface something useful.
