Ferrari enjoyed a decent start to their campaign at the 2026 F1 Australian GP, with Charles Leclerc finishing third, behind the two Mercedes of George Russell and Kimi Antonelli, and just ahead of his team-mate Lewis Hamilton in fourth.
The team’s expected start line advantage that was seen in testing translated into the opening F1 race of the season, as Leclerc stormed his Ferrari into the lead at the first corner, and fought very hard in a fantastic wheel-to-wheel battle with Russell for the opening 11 laps of the Australian GP.
Vasseur: “Nobody” at Ferrari expected that one-stop could work so early in F1 Australian GP
The battle was neutralised when the Virtual Safety Car was deployed for Isack Hadjar’s stricken Red Bull at the back straight on lap 11. At that point, Mercedes employed a double-stack and pitted both Russell and Antonelli, whilst both Ferraris stayed out.
Speaking to Sky Italia after the race, Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur said that the team was sticking to plan A and a target lap to make a feasible one-stopper, and admitted that they didn’t expect that Mercedes’ hard tyres could make it all the way to the end from that point:
“Honestly, I don’t have a crystal ball,” he said in response to a question on whether Ferrari could’ve pitted at the first VSC. “At this stage of the race, nobody was expecting to do one stop from this point, and we were targeting to go long and to do one stop later on.”
However, Ferrari’s strategic choices were further harmed when a second VSC was deployed on lap 18, as Valtteri Bottas had to stop his Cadillac just at the pit entry, which triggered the FIA to close the pit lane and effectively denied Ferrari a chance to compensate for not stopping under the first race neutralisation:
“We were not lucky with the second [virtual] safety car, when they closed the pit lane,” he lamented. “But it is like it is.”
Mercedes were “half-a-second” faster than Ferrari per lap at F1 Australian GP
Although the strategic said didn’t help Ferrari’s cause as they had to pit both cars under green flag conditions, Vasseur believes Mercedes’ underlying pace advantage – which he touted as being in the region of half-a-second per lap – was big enough to win in any case:
“Honestly, I think that Mercedes, over the weekend, they were faster than us,” he admitted. “It was a good race, but a good starting point also. We know where we are compared to them, and we have a lot of work to do and a lot of improvement to do before the next one.“
Huge Mercedes qualifying gap was down to execution, not just pure pace
Whilst it was clear that Mercedes still held a significant advantage over Ferrari on F1 race day at the 2026 Australian GP, the margin wasn’t quite as big as in qualifying, where the Ferraris were almost a second slower than the pace-setting Russell.
Vasseur explains that the team executed the qualifying session sub-optimally and hopes they will iron out some of these issues to close the gap as the season progresses:
“I think that the gap was bigger [in qualifying] with Mercedes,” he said. “But I’m not sure that we did the best that we can yesterday, honestly, as a team at every single level, and we have to correct it for the next one.
“But overall, I think the delta pace with Mercedes is there.I don’t know if it’s half-a-second, or a bit less or a bit more, but it’s in this region.
“Now it will depend from track to track, and we have still a lot of things to improve before next week and during the season.
“It’s difficult to know because sometimes you are making compromises on the power unit for the chassis or vice versa. You can’t split like this. Overall, they are perhaps half a second faster than us, and we have to work on every single area.“
Ferrari already working on a “good upgrade” for the chassis
The Frenchman underlined the importance of the development race between the teams going forward, and revealed Ferrari already has a “good upgrade” for the SF-26 in the works, as it has a “long list” of things to improve – including the critical energy management aspect – in order to catch the Silver Arrows:
“I [said] before the season that it doesn’t matter the picture of Melbourne,” he added. “The most important would be the capacity to improve and to develop the car, and we have a very long list of things that we have to improve.
“We know that we’ll bring a good upgrade soon on the chassis, but we have also to do steps on the engine and energy management, and everything.
“I think it’s true for us, but it’s true for everybody [as well]. [Mercedes] will probably also improve.
“So [it’s] ‘OK, let’s push, let’s focus on ourselves’. We have a long list, as I said before, we have a long list of items to improve.
“We didn’t do a perfect weekend, but I think at the end it’s a decent result for the team and a good start of the season.”
After the 2026 Australian GP, Ferrari sits second in the F1 constructors’ championship, 16 points behind Mercedes in the lead.
Next week’s Chinese GP will mark the first Sprint weekend of the season, and will pose even more challenges for teams and drivers, with a sole practice session before heading into Sprint Qualifying on Friday.
