Leclerc admits Ferrari engine trails Mercedes and Ford-powered Red Bull in 2026

Charles Leclerc has publicly acknowledged that Ferrari’s 2026 power unit is down on output compared to both Mercedes and the Ford-badged Red Bull engine, and expressed confidence that the Scuderia will qualify for a development allocation under Formula 1’s new ADUO equalisation framework following the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal.

The opening rounds of the 2026 season have repeatedly exposed a pattern: Ferrari competes closely with Mercedes in the early laps of a race, only to lose ground once the Silver Arrows build momentum. That dynamic played out in Melbourne, Shanghai, and Suzuka, and persisted in Miami despite Ferrari arriving with a package of updates.

“I think it’s going to be very difficult [to catch Mercedes],” Leclerc said. “I think they have a very big advantage — and ADUO, I obviously don’t know yet if we are in. I’ll be surprised if not, because I can see sometimes on the straight that we are lacking a little bit compared to the Mercedes or even the Ford power unit.”

The Additional Development and Upgrade Opportunities system — ADUO — was introduced by the FIA to ensure parity between F1’s five powertrain manufacturers in the first year of the new technical regulations. After Montreal, the governing body will complete its initial power output measurements and determine which manufacturers are eligible for a compensatory upgrade allocation.

Leclerc stopped short of predicting that any ADUO-granted upgrade would be sufficient to close the gap entirely. “It will definitely be a help to try and get closer — whether it will be enough to close the gap, I don’t know. It also depends which level we get, if we get it at all, but surely if we get it, it will be a help.”

In Miami, Ferrari’s updates delivered some performance, but McLaren — last year’s constructors’ champion — also upgraded its car for F1’s first North American round and extracted considerably more from those changes, leaving Ferrari behind both McLaren and Mercedes in the competitive order.

Leclerc argued that the relative performance swings between teams in 2026 are not solely a function of the updates being bolted onto the cars. He pointed to Red Bull as an example of a team finding significant gains through better optimisation of the new-generation machinery and its powertrain, rather than through raw hardware improvements alone.

“I really think that a lot about these cars is optimising,” he said. “If I look at Red Bull, I think a big part of their step is not just the upgrades they’ve brought.”

Ferrari’s position heading into Montreal is therefore shaped by two variables it cannot yet fully control: the outcome of the FIA’s power measurements and how quickly its engineers can unlock the remaining performance potential of a car that, by Leclerc’s own assessment, is still finding its feet in a radically changed regulatory landscape.