TEAM PREVIEW: Ferrari – All you need to know about the team ahead of the 2026 F1 season

Hopes were high for Ferrari entering into 2025, but it proved to be a challenging campaign for the Scuderia, with the team dropping to fourth in the standings as well as failing to claim a victory. Amid the introduction of new technical regulations, can the iconic squad return to the top in 2026? Here is everything you need to know about Ferrari ahead of the upcoming season…

Drivers for 2026

Charles Leclerc #16: 8 Grand Prix wins, 50 podiums, 1672 points, 171 starts
Lewis Hamilton #44: 7 World Championships, 105 Grand Prix wins, 202 podiums, 5018.5 points, 380 starts

Ferrari’s line-up remains the same for 2026, with Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton again leading the Italian outfit’s charge.

Leclerc will enter into his eighth season racing for the team, having made the step up in 2019 following his rookie campaign for Sauber one year earlier. While he has so far collected eight wins in that time, the Monegasque did not stand on the top step in 2025 – though did bring his tally of podiums up to 50 via seven appearances on the rostrum.

Little needs to be said about the statistics surrounding Hamilton’s career, with the seven-time World Champion having earned numerous accolades since his debut in 2007. His first campaign as a Ferrari driver, however, brought its challenges, meaning that the Briton ended an F1 season without a podium for the first time.

How did Ferrari do in 2025?

After ending 2024 only 14 points adrift of Teams’ Champions McLaren – with the battle for that title going right down to the wire – Ferrari were tipped for success by many ahead of 2025, a campaign that they started in the headlines following the arrival of Hamilton from Mercedes.

There were early hints of promise for the SF-25 when Hamilton drove it to an impressive Sprint victory at Round 2 in China – though the rest of the weekend proved tough for the team, with both Hamilton and Leclerc disqualified from the Grand Prix due to technical infringements.

While there were some other highlights along the way – including Leclerc’s surprise pole position in Hungary – much of the campaign ultimately proved difficult for Ferrari, who slipped backwards to fourth in the Teams’ Championship to mark their lowest finish since 2020.

Amid impending rule changes in 2026, the Scuderia chose to switch their focus to that early in the year, perhaps accounting for some of their troubles. Team Principal Fred Vasseur conceded that this may have been “tough to manage psychologically” for the squad, but reiterated that he was still “confident with the call that we made”.

History

As the only team to have contested every F1 season since the World Championship began back in 1950, Ferrari have become one of the sport’s most historic names, collecting multiple accolades across the decades.

This has so far seen them win 16 Teams’ Championships as well as 15 Drivers’ titles, with nine different names achieving the latter; Alberto Ascari was the first to take the crown for the Italian outfit in 1952, while Kimi Raikkonen became the most recent Ferrari World Champion in 2007.

Others to triumph for the Scuderia include Juan Manuel Fangio, Mike Hawthorn, Phil Hill, John Surtees, Niki Lauda, Jody Scheckter and Michael Schumacher. It was Schumacher who spearheaded the team’s most successful period, in which they stormed to five consecutive titles between 2000 and 2004.

Despite the arrival of champions such as Fernando Alonso, Sebastian Vettel and more recently Hamilton, Ferrari have – despite their best efforts – failed to add to their illustrious tally in recent times.

Greatest achievement

As already mentioned, Ferrari’s storied history has seen them experience plenty of memorable moments – but arguably their greatest achievement came during the squad’s dominant run in the early 2000s.

After collecting four Teams’ titles and three Drivers’ Championships during the 1970s, the Scuderia then faced a lengthy dry spell that – barring two further Teams’ prizes in the early 1980s – saw them go without championship glory for many years.

Their fortunes started to change in the late 1990s, culminating in winning the Teams’ Championship in 1999. But even greater was to come when Michael Schumacher took the squad’s first Drivers’ title in 21 years at the close of the 2000 campaign.

This kickstarted a remarkable period for Ferrari, in which the seemingly unbeatable partnership between the team and Schumacher resulted in five back-to-back championships through to the end of 2004. The German remains the only driver in history to achieve five Drivers’ titles in a row.

One key goal for 2026

While the team’s decision to channel their resources into 2026 may have led to some challenges last year, Leclerc has said that the call was a “no-brainer”, given that it quickly became apparent during the early stages of the season that they would not be able to challenge for the 2025 title.

As such, Ferrari will be hoping that the move pays off and that they can experience a much stronger beginning to the upcoming campaign, one in which they will be desperately keen to progress beyond last season’s P4 finish.

Part of this will be the target to return to winning ways – having faced a season without a victory for the first time since 2021 – while Hamilton will clearly be hoping for better in 2026, despite stating after the 2025 Abu Dhabi finale that he did not yet “have a mindset” for the next season following the end of a tough year.

If the Scuderia can succeed in providing their all-star line-up with a car that has the potential to win, it will be fascinating to see how the team’s 77th season in Formula 1 might unfold.