Ferrari get creative with new regulations as F1 test looms

Ferrari's technical director Loic Serra has hinted that the Scuderia are getting creative with the new regulations ahead of F1's pre-season testing later this month.

The new era of F1 cars will take to the track for the first time at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya between January 26 and January 30, although the tests will be conducted behind closed doors.

But the real test for Serra will be whether he can turn things around at Ferrari across the 2026 campaign as a whole, after the Maranello based squad finished a lowly fourth in the constructors' standings last season.

Having acquired the talent of seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton, the tifosi had high hopes for Ferrari last year, but the SF-25 had other ideas.

Both Hamilton and new team-mate Charles Leclerc bemoaned the performance of their 2025 machinery and Serra took a lot of heat for the poor performance of the car.

However, team principal Fred Vasseur recently spoke out and absolved him of any blame given that the car was essentially fully formed when Serra joined Ferrari, meaning the real test for the former Mercedes man will come at the end of the 2026 championship.

Will Ferrari be competitive in 2026?

2026 brings new regulations and with it, a fresh start for all 11 teams as the competitive order looks to be entirely reset.

Serra and the Scuderia are currently searching for a solution to their 2025 woes and next season could be full of surprises, but will Ferrari be one of them?

During the off-season, rumours have swirled regarding solutions which are believed to have been found by Mercedes and Red Bull Powertrains to find advantages with their respective power units.

And though the true pecking order may not be revealed until halfway through the 2026 calendar, Serra certainly seems on board with finding the 'grey areas' in the new regulations and getting creative with them for the benefit of the team.

Speaking over the winter break, Serra said: "I think what we call 'grey areas' are nothing more than human creativity, thinking about things that have never been thought of before,’ said the French engineer, as reported by Motorsport Italy.

"I don't think that new regulations, four years or one year after their introduction, change the overall picture at all. They don't change the picture. They change the field of exploration, because at the beginning of a new regulation, everything is immature.

"It is more likely to see big differences because the concepts are not yet convergent. But look at this year. Look at 2025: you've seen grey areas. Lots of them. To be explored. People think. Everyone thought, 'There's no margin'. In reality, whether Formula 1 regulations are stable or not, human creativity has no limits."

"Every year, and not just every year, but every week, I see people coming up with new ideas, and I say, 'Oh, look, we thought of this, we thought of that'. It's fascinating, but then you know it happens everywhere."

2026 will be the true test as to whether Serra can turn Ferrari around on the technical side of things, if not, he would have run out of excuses after sounding so positive about the new regulations during the winter break.

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