Being one second behind or one second in front in Melbourne will go a long way towards determining Ferrari’s development plan for the year as either would mean it makes “no sense” to use resources on the 2025 car, SF-25.

Ferrari, like their rivals, face a conundrum this season as they balance their resources between upgrading the 2025 cars and designing the all-new 2026 machinery.

To upgrade or not to upgrade, that is the Ferrari question

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher and Sam Cooper

This season marks the final year of Formula 1’s current technical regulations before the sport swaps to smaller, lighter, more agile cars for next year’s championship.

With limited ATR [Aerodynamic Testing Restrictions] time, which is based on the F1 2024 Constructors’ standings, the sport’s leading teams have even less time to work on their cars. McLaren and Ferrari are the two big losers in that with only 70 and 75 per cent of the full allotment.

It means their resources will be even more stretched. And that both teams intend to fight for this year’s championship titles adds to the burden as they will be intent on improving the cars in the early rounds, perhaps even through to the end of the championship depending on how the situation plays out on track.

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Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur concedes there will come a time when every team has to call an end to their 2025 upgrades, and that means getting the early-season upgrades right will be crucial.

“For sure if we are to develop the current car, it will be the first couple of races,” Vasseur told media including PlanetF1.com. “And I think everybody will, I don’t want to say that we will stop the current car, but we’ll be more focused on ’26.

“It means that the first races and the first upgrade that we will bring on the car will be crucial for the season. And for sure, we will bring something in the early stage into the season.”

But while upgrades are already planned for the SF-25, there may come a time during the season when Ferrari have to react to what’s happening on the track with a big unscheduled development.

Vasseur was asked how that would work with 2026 in mind.

“If we have to react, we can’t react after June,” he said. “We know that the lead time is quite important for big parts and probably in the summer time we’ll all be fully focused on 2026.

“If you have a look at the previous change of regulations, I think it was 2021, at the end of ’21 when you had the fight between Mercedes and Red Bull, they were able to bring upgrades [to] the last couple of events.

“You can still have one or two sessions for the development of the current car, but not after September, October, because it makes no sense.

“But even if you have a plan and you decide now that ‘we do it like this, like this, like this,’ let’s see after a couple of races in the championship where you are.”

Of course deciding the upgrade schedule and the split in resources would be made easier by having a car that’s either one second quicker than the chasing pack, or one second off the pace.

“If you are one second behind, it makes no sense to continue to develop,” Vasseur admitted. “If you are one second in front you can be focussed a little bit on ’26.”

“But,” he continued, “I think these two scenarios are not realistic at all.”

In fact, he reckons this season the grid may not even be split by a second as the competition has closed up with the teams now chasing “small” margins.

“The competition is getting closer and closer and we are more and more speaking about details,” he said. “We are bringing an upgrade now we are speaking about a small [gain]. For sure, we need to have good tools to be able to quantify it and to do good choices. It means that tools are more and more crucial.

“Also, because the driveability [matters more for] performance than in the past with the current regulations, it means that the simulator is important, also. I think we did a good step on all our tools. It’s not a secret that we did a step on the wind tunnel last year, that we are in continuous improvement on every single tool and department.

“But it’s not just about the operation, it’s also the tools that we have in the entire structure. This is a continuous improvement approach. It’s not that one day you are happy and you will have something good forever. If you don’t change every single year and try to improve every single year at one stage you will be behind the others.”

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