Ferrari's secret to aggressive F1 upgrades revealed and why the costcap can't help rival teams stop them

Ferrari

Ferrari's secret to aggressive F1 upgrades revealed and why the costcap can't help rival teams stop them

Williams and other midfield teams can not develop as fast as Ferrari or Mercedes

Sam Cook Digital Journalist

Sports Journalist who has been covering motorsport since 2023

Monday 13 July 2026 17:30

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Ferrari have taken an aggressive upgrade strategy this year, as they try and catch up to the dominant team in F1 2026, Mercedes.

But Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has questioned how they are bringing quite so many upgrades, in an era of the cost cap in the sport.

The cost cap was brought in back in 2021, and ensures that all teams are only allowed to spend a finite amount of cash on improving their cars every year to hit the overall cap figure - which was $215million (£170.09million) when 2026 began.

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While Mercedes have been more circumspect in their upgrades so far in 2026, Ferrari have been relatively spendthrift, bringing a whole host of upgrades to their SF-26 already, with more on the way at the Belgian and Dutch Grands Prix.

It has meant that Ferrari have gone from being the 'best of the rest' behind Mercedes at the start of the year, to being genuine title contenders. They have won two of the last three grands prix, and Lewis Hamilton is now only 32 points behind championship leader Kimi Antonelli in the drivers' championship.

Now, a rival team boss of Mercedes and Ferrari has revealed how those teams are able to bring quite so many upgrades despite the cost cap, praising the efficiency of the bigger teams in the sport.

Williams one team who are struggling to bring upgrades

It has been confirmed by Williams team principal Vowles that his team are conducting a two-week internal review into their upgrade department, and now he has revealed that the team struggle compared with the likes of Ferrari and Mercedes to bring upgrades because of the way they are set up.

"Even if I had everything on time and working, our efficiency level is not at the level of a Formula 1 team that's an established way of working for 10 years," Vowles told Motorsport.com. "That's just a fact behind it.

"So they have a far more efficient set of processes behind them. Take Williams, we didn't have an external supply network at the right level because there's no funds to pay them fundamentally.

"Mercedes for 12 years built up a relationship to have the best suppliers and the best people in their suppliers working on their product on time with the right communication and the ways of working - basic, I know.

"But if that's missing, in two years I'm trying to build up what happened elsewhere for 10 years with them not having necessarily the best allocation of people around it. That won't happen overnight.

"That means there's a loss of efficiency and it can be time or cost. You can choose whichever one of those two levers you want to pull or both of them you want to pull.

"Ferrari have the same. All the top teams have the same. Our job in all of that is draw a pathway for how we get to that level or even think differently to them and get ourselves there.

"But I think fundamentally for two sides of the grid, it will cost more money and take more time in order to produce parts."

All upgrades that Ferrari have brought to their SF-26

Ferrari first narrowed the gap at the Barcelona Grand Prix with an aerodynamic upgrade that helped Hamilton take his first win for the team since joining at the start of last season.

A second upgrade followed at the next race in Austria with Ferrari using the first token of their ADUO development to bring a boost in engine performance at the Red Bull Ring, although the team were well off the pace that weekend.

No upgrades were bought to Silverstone but Ferrari shocked many with its competitiveness, with Charles Leclerc taking his first win since 2024, and Hamilton claiming third.

For the upcoming Belgian Grand Prix, Ferrari are bringing a few track-specific minor tweaks to their car, including a revised macarena rear wing, and a new exhaust system, which they believe can give them an extra seven horsepower for the high-speed circuit.

Ferrari's third big upgrade package of the season is then expected to come immediately after the summer break at Zandvoort for the Dutch Grand Prix on August 23, with an aero focus on performance for a high downforce circuit.

Ferrari are also expected to use the second ADUO token they have been given by the FIA to improve their engine, although this is likely to come later in the season at power dependent tracks such as Monza on September 6 for the Italian Grand Prix.

Written by

Sam Cook - Digital Journalist

Sam Cook is a talented young sports journalist and social media professional who now specialises in Formula 1, having previously worked as a football journalist and a local news reporter for a variety of different brands.

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F1 Ferrari Williams 2026 regulations James Vowles