Ferrari has the Saturday blues! Vasseur: “The impact is enormous”

Ferrari is the only top team yet to secure a pole position in the 2026 season. Mercedes has an impressive 12, McLaren has 3, and Red Bull Racing has 2. Even Alpine has managed one (Pierre Gasly at Monza). Ferrari has started no higher than second on the grid in any of the 18 Grands Prix of the current Formula 1 season. What’s going on?

Ferrari’s qualifying woes

In fact, the Scuderia consistently struggles on Saturdays – and then pays the price for it in Sunday’s race. This was also the case in Austin. Ferrari was the fastest in each of the practice sessions. The same was true in Q1 and Q2. But in the decisive third qualifying session, Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) and the two Red Bull Racing drivers, Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar, were suddenly faster. Only fourth and fifth on the grid for the Reds.

Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur nevertheless expressed overall satisfaction. Leclerc finished second in the Grand Prix, Hamilton fourth. Vasseur: “Overall, I think it was a good weekend in terms of pace and execution. Everything went well, apart from the final lap in Q3.” That is, when it came to securing the starting positions.

Vasseur: “Overall, I think the weekend went well and everything worked. As far as the overall package is concerned, everything is going as expected. The problem is: we completed every lap – from the first lap in FP1 to the last lap of the race – in good form, apart from just the last two laps in Q3 in the second half. I think we probably missed something there.” A better starting position and, with it, perhaps victory?

Small details have a huge impact in the tightly contested F1 field

Vasseur: “The performance window for the car and tyres is very narrow. And as soon as you’re even slightly off the mark, you quickly lose two or three tenths.” And in the tight F1 field, that’s a world of difference. “That means you can slip from a brilliant result to nothing. Because of gusts of wind, or because you start sliding a bit too much on the cool-down lap. Or you have to brake a little. The consequences are enormous.”

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A problem specific to Ferrari?

Yet it often seems to play out like this: Ferrari are strong in practice, and in the first two qualifying sessions too. And then, in the decisive run, it doesn’t work out and the Scuderia have to start behind the competition.

So is this something specific to Ferrari? Vasseur says: No. The Frenchman adds: “I think, at least this weekend, that applied to all the teams. Kimi has probably also taken a step forward, because you can imagine he wasn’t quite on top form before. And for Q3, he then got everything right. But I think the other seven cars – apart from Hadjar, so probably the other six – have taken a step backwards.”

Vasseur: “Charles’s fastest lap came in Q2. We certainly didn’t do a perfect job in Q3. That applies to us, and it applies to everyone. But we need to bring all the parameters together to try and understand the situation better. It’s so close, though. Even the smallest details can knock you out of the race. If you don’t get everything right, you can slip from second to sixth.”