2026 Scuderia Ferrari HP F1 Team

[f1316]

Temperatures likely to be 26-28deg C for Saturday and Sunday with no rain currently forecast. Could be a stiff breeze from the West which is a tail wind in the high speed Abbey (T1) and Copse (T9) corners. Will that temperature be enough to cause high deg? Tyres will be C1, C2, C3 rather than Austria's C3, C4, C5 so we'll have to wait and see what happens.

Edit: have seen C2, C3, C4 for Silverstone which might make it more tricky if temperatures get a bit higher.

I think the issue is that Silverstone has fewer braking zones than Barcelona - even though both circuits have a lot of fast corners, they’re not as similar as we sometimes think. So deployment will probably be a particular problem.

Can the high speed corner performance + some kind of tyre deg advantage for that kind of corner cancel that out? Tough to say but I doubt it.

My hope is that perhaps they haven’t optimised the deployment software for the ADUO upgrade - so while Hamilton said the “grunt” out of a corner felt good, they ran out of deployment too soon - and maybe there’s more potential there? But that’s just wishful thinking, not necessarily based on anything.

Good points but not about tyre deg which is what was being discussed.

Fair - but I interpreted “making a 3 stop work” as “will we be competitive”. Technically the 3 stop in Austria “worked”, we just weren’t competitive.

So what I’m saying: maybe we’ll have good tyre deg (and maybe we won’t) but unfortunately I don’t think it’ll be enough to be competitive. We really needed that first ADUO to do a bit more to aid deployment for us to be properly competitive across a range of circuits.

[catent]

So if 3-4 disappointing results in a row (only two of which actually saw substandard pace,
relative to the standard Leclerc has set over the past 8+ seasons) is enough to prove a driver has “lost it”, what does that mean for Hamilton who looked “lost” for the better part of 4 full seasons, before recently rediscovering his groove? Maybe we should reconsider kneejerk reactions and narratives.

Leclerc was off the pace in Canada but wasn’t confident on the brakes.

Brake issues persist into Monaco. Pace was good during the race but the brake DNF cast a nasty shadow over what would’ve otherwise been a fine points haul.

Barcelona was simply an error in judgment during Q3. Otherwise the pace and form was good throughout the weekend. Bad luck with the mechanical DNF.

Austria was a tough weekend for the entire team. Leclerc was fine in qualifying but struggled during the race. This and Canada were the two weekends where his pace was actually lacking.

Any of these results in a vacuum, throughout a season, wouldn’t be terribly concerning. Sometimes the car has gremlins; sometimes the best drivers don’t have the pace on certain days; sometimes mechanical failures occur. Leclerc has dealt with all three of those variables in very close proximity to each other, which is amplifying the perception of concern, since these struggles have been in consecutive weeks.

Leclerc has been in F1 for 8+ seasons; he has participated in over 150+ F1 events. We have come to recognize him as a legitimate talent based on his extended career in F1. It’s a MUCH more probable conclusion that the talent he displayed over those many years/races is real and didn’t vanish overnight, rather than the conclusion that those 8+ seasons and 150+ events were flukes.

Heck, it’s not even a matter of speculation; based on how we define “flukes” and looking at the sample sizes, the only fair and accurate conclusion is that Leclerc is a proven talent who’s currently going through a rough spell for a variety of reasons. Why some are discounting the rest of his (long and successful) career in their analysis, is beyond me.

A bit pathetic that people are turning on Leclerc, IMO.