Ferrari handed reality check amid ‘quite staggering’ Mercedes gap

Luca di Montezemolo, the former Ferrari chairman, says the SF-26 is not a car capable of winning the F1 2026 championship due to the “quite staggering” deficit to Mercedes.

It comes after Lewis Hamilton admitted at last weekend’s Chinese Grand Prix that Ferrari is unlikely to catch Mercedes in the short term given the W17’s “huge gap” at the front.

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Mercedes established itself as the team to beat across the first two rounds of F1 2026 with George Russell and Kimi Antonelli winning in Australia and China respectively.

Ferrari emerged as Mercedes’ closest challenger at both rounds with Hamilton and teammate Charles Leclerc claiming a podium finish apiece so far this season.

Despite taking the lead at the start of both races held so far, Ferrari has struggled to match Mercedes’ pace with Leclerc finishing 15 seconds behind Russell in Melbourne.

Hamilton, meanwhile, was more than 25 seconds adrift of Antonelli at the finish in Shanghai.

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Speaking ahead of the Chinese Grand Prix, Hamilton conceded that Mercedes has a “huge” advantage – estimated to be as much as 0.5 seconds per lap – over Ferrari in race conditions.

The seven-time world champion went on to address Ferrari’s hopes of catching Mercedes over the course of the F1 2026 season, admitting “it’s not going to be a short thing.”

Di Montezemolo, who resigned as Ferrari president and chairman in 2014 after several decades of service to the Scuderia, believes the team is unlikely to threaten Mercedes for the title in 2026.

He told Italian publication Corriere della Sera: “I’m sorry to say, at least judging by what we’ve seen so far this season, that they have a good car but not one capable of winning the World Championship.

“What hurts me most is that in the last 10 years they’ve never made it to the final race still in contention for the drivers’ title.

“In my day, we lost 11 championships at the very last moment; I remember them as punches in the stomach, but at least we were there fighting for it.”

Asked if Ferrari does have a glimmer of hope for 2026, he added: “The gap is quite staggering, but the teams chasing the leaders can improve and there will be long pit stops.

“Perhaps it’s not quite as cut-and-dried as it seems.”

Di Montezemolo’s comments come after he joined forces with Ferrari’s historic rival McLaren in a surprise move in 2025.

The 78-year-old became a director of McLaren Group Holdings Limited, which controls the road car-based McLaren Automotive business and holds a minority stake in the McLaren F1 team, last June.

As reported by PlanetF1.com on Wednesday, Ferrari is set to hold a filming day during the extended April break following the cancellations of the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian grands prix.

It is believed that Ferrari is yet to use any of its two permitted filming days in 2026, with the SF-26 car’s post-launch shakedown at Fiorano in January officially classed as a so-called demonstration event.

As such, Ferrari is keen to hold a filming day in the coming weeks to produce more content for its commercial partners, with the team’s current offering limited to post-launch material from January.

PlanetF1.com understands that Ferrari is still evaluating where to hold its planned filming day despite reports in Italy suggesting it will take place at Monza.

It has been speculated that Monza is Ferrari’s preferred venue given the circuit’s high demands in terms of energy management.

This would allow the team to further optimise its 2026 power unit in its bid to close the gap to Mercedes.

Hamilton identified Mercedes’ deployment on the straights as a key factor behind its current advantage, declaring that Ferrari needs to work out how the team is achieving it.

Asked how Mercedes’ pace advantage is manifesting itself on the track, he said: “It seems mostly on straight, so I think it would be at the moment everywhere on the straights.

“It seems more so when they open up the ESM – that’s when they take a huge step, so whatever’s going in that phase is an area we need to understand.

“They seem to have a little bit more deployment, so less de-rating at the end of the straights than some of us.

“So we’ve just got to work on trying to see how we can eke out more from our engine.”

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