Lewis Hamilton’s 2026 title challenge has suffered a serious blow in recent weeks, but Ferrari are plotting a strong finish to the season with fresh upgrades on the way.
The three consecutive races in Zandvoort, Monza and Madrid proved disastrous for Hamilton’s championship ambitions, with the gap to rival Kimi Antonelli growing significantly during that run.
Antonelli accumulated 73 points across the Dutch, Italian and Spanish Grands Prix, compared to just 22 for Hamilton over the same period.
Despite that setback, Ferrari are not giving up, with the SF-26 reportedly set to receive performance upgrades ahead of the final stretch of the 2026 campaign in October.
Elsewhere, Formula 1 has approved a controversial plan to reduce the distance of grand prix races from the 2027 season onwards.
The decision was made during the third F1 Commission meeting of the year, which took place at the FIA’s offices in London on Monday.
The meeting was chaired by F1 president and CEO Stefano Domenicali and FIA single-seat director Nikola Tombazis, with race distance among the key topics discussed.
Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur is also under increasing scrutiny from the Italian media, with reports emerging that he has been branded a “Napoleon” figure with an “allergy to Maranello.”
The pressure on Vasseur is significant given Ferrari’s status as one of the sport’s most celebrated institutions, where anything short of winning is rarely tolerated for long.
In other news, Max Verstappen has praised rival Lando Norris for his contributions in helping to address one of Formula 1’s broader accessibility challenges within motorsport.
F1 insider Peter Windsor has also called on the FIA to adjust its regulations if FIA F3 champion Ugo Ugochukwu is found to be too tall for current cars.
Ugochukwu, who turned 19 in April, won the FIA F3 championship in Madrid last weekend, capping off an impressive rise through single-seater racing at a very young age.