Ferrari failed to learn from McLaren’s big mistake

With Charles Leclerc surging into the lead at the Australian Grand Prix and Lewis Hamilton not far behind, Ferrari’s fast starts have the potential to be a powerful weapon in F1 2026.

But with Mercedes claiming a one-two finish with George Russell and Kimi Antonelli in Melbourne, it’s not about how you start. It’s how you manage the race from there…

Ferrari wasted an opportunity at the Australian Grand Prix

A version of this article originally appeared in PlanetF1.com’s conclusions from the 2026 Australian Grand Prix

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How far back, you wonder, must Ferrari qualify for the driver on pole to be able to relax at a race start in 2026?

Starting only fourth in Australia did not stop Charles Leclerc storming into the lead out of Turn 1 at the Australian Grand Prix last weekend.

Nor did seventh on the grid (effectively P6 after Oscar Piastri’s pre-race accident) prevent Lewis Hamilton from vaulting to third by the end of the opening lap.

The SF-26’s smaller turbo compared to the opposition, widely believed to be behind Ferrari’s lightning-fast race starts, is likely to prove a very potent weapon this season.

Yet a good start can only create an opportunity; it is up to the team to ensure that such opportunities are maximised.

With great predictability, it is in this area where Ferrari’s race blurred between highly encouraging and frustratingly unfulfilled.

Data analysis: How Ferrari lost the Australian Grand Prix

Ferrari strategy call scrutinised as Russell leads Mercedes 1-2 in Australia

Ferrari telemetry data explains secrets behind epic Australian GP start

After McLaren scared itself stiff in Qatar at the end of last year, each team would have been well advised to have a sign reading ‘see safety car, pit under safety car’ pinned to the pit wall going forward.

The moral of the story from that race?

The gains in terms of pure race time – simply getting from the start line to the chequered flag as quickly as possible – should far outweigh every other consideration whenever the safety car, virtual or real, is deployed.

Ferrari did not get the memo, being responsible for two of the only three cars in the field (Franco Colapinto’s Alpine was the other) to miss the chance to pit under both early VSCs.

As such, it was impossible to look at Leclerc’s 15.5s deficit at the end in Melbourne without wondering how differently the race might have developed had Ferrari effectively halved the time it spent in the pits.

Still not quite enough to beat Mercedes at this venue, perhaps, but certainly a helluva lot closer.

And by being a helluva lot closer, Ferrari’s mere presence would have kept the pressure on Mercedes and, in the process, increased the chance of its drivers making mistakes in the very first race of this complex new era in which the sheer flood of information in the cockpit was disorientating.

Whenever a race is lost in this manner, there is a temptation to draw comparisons between the respective teams involved and their contrasting stages of development.

Ferrari, some might argue, still needs to learn how to win again – a common excuse uttered by re-emerging F1 teams following a period in the wilderness – after a barren 2025.

Compare and contrast to Mercedes, which seemed to treat last season as one big warm up for 2026, gradually regaining its strength and collecting some accomplished victories along the way.

Yet even the most Ferrari-centric soul would confess that none of that really applies here.

Early days these might be, but you will struggle to find a more glaring strategy mistake in the entire 2026 season.

What Ferrari said about its Australian Grand Prix strategy

Fred Vasseur

We have to be realistic with this. They [Mercedes] were eight tenths faster than us yesterday. We fight like hell at the beginning.

I think at the stage of the race, nobody was expecting to do one stop. We targeted the optimum for us and the optimum was to extend.

Now we’re also a bit surprised, I think Mercedes also, with the life of the tyres – I think we could have done 300 laps today!

But it is like it is. I think they still had during the race, a delta of performance with us, and the issue is obviously just the pure pace.

The issue is not the strategy, it’s just the pure pace.

Charles Leclerc

I don’t regret it. It was a wanted choice, a wanted and conscious choice.

Looking from FP1 to now, there’s been at every session a car that was stopped, at least one car.

We knew that there were very high chances that this was not going to be the only VSC of the race and so we thought that it was better for us to maybe wait for another one.

That’s always a gamble, of course. We didn’t know that this would happen.

The reality is we’ve had other VSCs after, and one which was particularly well placed, but unfortunately for this one for us the pit entry was closed and we couldn’t take it.

So we were a little bit unlucky on that side, but it was a conscious choice again and I don’t really regret it.

Additional reporting by Mat Coch

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