For the past year Ferrari have presented their 2026 project as a carefully stage-managed comeback. A new power unit philosophy, a reset chassis, the signing of Lewis Hamilton and a repositioning of Charles Leclerc as the senior race engineer inside the garage. After three rounds of the new regulations, both drivers have stopped trying to hide how far off it is.
At Suzuka, Hamilton offered the most unvarnished assessment of Ferrari's problem the seven-time champion has given since joining the team. "I was feeling pretty decent. I mean, it's just we're not very quick," he said. "Compared to the guys, the Mercedes and a little bit McLaren. My first lap I was up and then I lost two and a half tenths just on the straights — just from I had a snap and then it changed the deployment and then that was it."
Asked to quantify the deficit, Hamilton was specific. "It looks like McLaren have taken a step forward. Naturally, they've got the Mercedes engine, which is a long way ahead of us at the moment. And yeah, we've got a huge amount of work to do to be eight tenths off, or seven tenths, whatever it is. Even if you bring an upgrade of a couple of tenths, it's still a long way off. So to close that gap, it's going to take a mighty push from everybody."
The Japanese Grand Prix itself confirmed the diagnosis. Hamilton started third and finished sixth, describing the race as "pretty terrible" and blaming a profound lack of power. "I was P3 and ended up going backwards. But yeah, just need to understand where I was losing all the power. I just had a real lack of power through it, particularly the second stint," he said.
Leclerc's analysis was more technical — and more damning for the Ferrari power unit specifically. The Monegasque believes Ferrari's engine is inherently more vulnerable to the deployment-management issues that define racing under the 2026 rules. "I felt for some reason that we are a little bit more exposed to that compared to maybe the Mercedes engine, which is something that we need to look at," he said after qualifying.
By Sunday night Leclerc was framing the situation as a multi-front battle. "Mercedes have a big advantage over us at the moment. This is a focus," he said. "But we must not forget that there are huge gains in developing also the chassis, the aerodynamic, the putting the tyres in the right temperature in the right window and all of this makes the difference. So surely the engine, we cannot change it for now anyway. But in the meantime, we get there — we need to improve absolutely everything around the car."
The engine is the most painful part of the admission. Under the 2026 regulations, full-spec power unit changes are heavily restricted, which means Ferrari will be fighting most of the season with a unit Hamilton has already described as "a long way" off the Mercedes. McLaren's recent step forward, he argued, is not purely their own work — "they've got the Mercedes engine."
For Hamilton, the gap challenges a promise that underpinned his move to Maranello. His debut podium in 2026 felt, in the moment, like the start of a resurgence. "I definitely feel that it could say that it's more in sight than ever before," he said of a first Ferrari win after finishing third in an earlier round. "In the race trim I think they've got four, five tenths on us at the moment. That's a huge debt to pick up, both in downforce and efficiency and then also power. That's a huge upgrade that we need to push for."
On the evidence of Suzuka, that gap has grown rather than shrunk. Ferrari's 2026 reboot was supposed to deliver a Mercedes-beating package. Right now, even their own drivers are framing it as a development problem that will take the rest of the season to solve.
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*Originally published on [Formula One News](https://newsformula.one/article/ferrari-engine-deficit-hamilton-leclerc-mercedes-mclaren). Visit for full coverage.*
