Ferrari is down on power "even to Ford", says Leclerc

Charles Leclerc believes Ferrari has a "difficult" job on its hands to close the door to Mercedes, particularly when it comes to the power unit differences between the two Formula 1 manufacturer teams.

The opening rounds of the 2026 season have been characterised by battles in the early laps between Ferrari and Mercedes, but the Maranello squad often found itself taking a back seat once the Mercedes cars had gathered momentum through the early stages, particularly in Melbourne, Shanghai and Suzuka. 

However, while Ferrari's updates for the Miami race added a smidgen of performance, it found itself behind McLaren; last year's championship-winning team had also upgraded its car for F1's first visit of the year to North America and found significant performance.

While Ferrari hopes that it can make further progress in Montreal, its aspirations will be tempered somewhat by the results of F1's first engine power checks.

To ensure parity between F1's powertrain manufacturers, the FIA has implemented the Additional Development and Upgrade Opportunities system, known as ADUO. After Montreal, each of the five manufacturers will know whether they have the chance to upgrade their power units once the FIA reaches a definitive measure of their outputs.

Leclerc hopes Ferrari is eligible to get something out of ADUO, since he believes that the Italian manufacturer's 2026 engine is down on both the Mercedes and the Red Bull-Ford unit in the power output stakes.

"I think it's going to be very difficult [to catch Mercedes]," Leclerc said. "I think they have a very big advantage - and ADUO, I mean I obviously don't know yet if we are in. I'll be surprised if not because I can see sometimes in the straight that we are lacking a little bit compared to the Mercedes or even Ford power unit.

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari

Photo by: Alastair Staley / LAT Images via Getty Images

"I think it will definitely be a help to try and get closer - whether it will be enough to close the gap, I don't know. It also depends which level we get if we get it at all but surely if we get it, it will be a help to get closer."

In the meantime, Leclerc believes that other teams finding greater optimisation with their new cars and powertrains had been partially responsible for Ferrari's smaller move forward in Miami.

The Monegasque stated he did not think Ferrari had made a smaller step forward versus McLaren and Red Bull with its updates, but agreed it was difficult to split the effect of updates with the effect of finding more powertrain performance.

"I think a lot about these cars is optimising," he said. "I mean if I look a little bit, doing a step back on the performance of each team, I don't fully believe that it's all down to the upgrades that each team have brought the step that we've seen. 

"I really think that, by example if we look at Red Bull, I think Red Bull was very strong during the winter test and then there was these first three races where as soon as you are not exactly optimised you lose a lot of performance.

"And I feel like in Miami they did a massive step on that, on top of the upgrades they brought. So I think it's very difficult to have a good picture of how much the upgrades are doing.

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing

Photo by: Andy Hone/ LAT Images via Getty Images

"One thing for sure is that every week we spend at the factory working on the new parts, they are they are big gains and much bigger than in the past, so it's going to be super important to be on top of upgrades. 

"But whether we did a smaller step compared to the others, I don't believe so. I just think that we are still in a moment of the season where teams are just figuring out how to maximise the whole system which is very, very complex. I think you will never arrive to the 100% optimisation with these kinds of cars, because there is also the driving.

"The driving is variable and will always be tricky."