Ferrari brought its second engine upgrade of the season to its home race, in front of 100,000 people who had been told it would close the gap to Mercedes. After the weekend the team’s own assessment was that the car was still “missing pure power”. Lewis Hamilton called the Mercedes advantage “mind-blowing”. Haas, which runs the same engine, said the upgrade was “no game-changer”. Those three verdicts describe the same problem from three angles, and understanding it explains most of Ferrari’s 2026.

Two kinds of power

A 2026 power unit makes its output in two places. The V6 combustion engine produces around 400kW from a fuel flow that is capped by energy rather than volume. The MGU-K adds up to 350kW of electrical power from a battery that is refilled mostly under braking. When engineers talk about “deployment” they mean the electrical half: how much charge the car has, how fast it can spend it and for how long down a straight. “Pure power” means the combustion half, the horsepower the V6 makes from each unit of fuel.

Deployment can be improved with software, battery management and clever harvesting strategies. Combustion power cannot. It comes from the fundamental design of the engine: the combustion chamber, the turbo, the way the fuel burns. Finding more of it mid-season means new hardware, and the ADUO allowance permits only a defined number of such steps.

What the upgrades did

Ferrari’s first ADUO step came earlier in the summer and its second, ADUO 2, arrived at Monza. Both targeted the electrical side. RacingNews365 reported that the second upgrade fixed a key deployment problem, and Ferrari’s Friday practice domination at Monza suggested the car had gained on the straights. Then qualifying and the race showed where the ceiling was. Mercedes still arrived at the end of the straights with more in hand, and Hamilton’s post-race assessment that Ferrari was “still behind on the straights” was borne out by the GPS traces. The upgrade improved how Ferrari spends its energy. It did not increase how much the engine makes.

The Haas verdict

Customer teams are the honest witnesses in an engine argument. Haas had to choose which of its drivers received the upgraded unit at Monza, an awkward decision the team explained publicly, and its conclusion afterwards was blunt: the step was not a game-changer for Haas either. When the customer, with no incentive to protect the manufacturer’s reputation, reaches the same conclusion as the works team’s lead driver, the diagnosis is settled.

What it costs Ferrari

The deficit has decided the championship. Hamilton is third on 191 points and Charles Leclerc fifth on 155, both well clear of the rest of the field and both a long way behind the two Mercedes. Ferrari is second in the constructors’ table by a comfortable margin over McLaren, which is a good result by most standards and a disappointing one by Ferrari’s. It has also fed the team’s other problem. A car that cannot win on merit turns every intra-team decision into a question of strategy rather than pace, and Ferrari has not managed those decisions well, as the Monza first-corner clash showed.

What happens next

The remaining ADUO allowance is finite and combustion gains are slow, so the gap is likely to persist until the 2027 reset, when every manufacturer starts a new design. Mercedes is reported to have a further upgrade coming, which The Race described as terrible news for Ferrari. The realistic 2026 goal in Maranello is second in the constructors’ standings and a clean end to the season. The realistic 2027 goal is the one Ferrari has set at the start of every regulation cycle for two decades: build the best engine on the grid. It has done so before. It has just not done so recently.

Frequently asked questions

Why is Ferrari slower on the straights?

Its engine makes less combustion power and converts fuel into usable energy less efficiently than the Mercedes unit, even after deployment upgrades.

What is ADUO 2?

Ferrari’s second in-season engine upgrade, introduced at Monza. It improved deployment but left the car missing pure power.

Did the upgrade work?

Partly. Hamilton called it a step but not enough, and Haas said it was no game-changer.

Can Ferrari fix it before the end of 2026?

Combustion gains are slow and the allowance is finite, so most expect the gap to last until 2027.