Hamilton’s Ferrari Upgrade Still Leaves Him Fifth at Zandvoort

Lewis Hamilton starts the Dutch Grand Prix from fifth after Ferrari’s advertised all-new chassis weekend left both red cars on the third row. The seven-time champion rebuilt his setup twice at Zandvoort and still sits 53 points behind Mercedes leader Kimi Antonelli.

Gazzetta dello Sport had previewed a new platform for Sunday, August 23. Some English reports called it an all-new chassis. The FIA’s own list is five aero parts, and the first full grand prix distance for that floor is still ahead.

The Floor Ferrari Fast-Tracked After Silverstone

Paolo Filisetti, technical writer at Gazzetta dello Sport, described the Zandvoort step on August 13 as a new floor, a direct evolution of the package Ferrari introduced at Barcelona in June, when Hamilton took his first win in red. The aim, he wrote, was more downforce from the body of the SF-26 so the car could live on twisty bits of track that do not reward straight-line punch.

That floor was not even on the original Dutch plan. Filisetti wrote that Ferrari only locked the change after comparing data from Austria and Silverstone, two circuits with opposite layouts, then pushed the parts through production before the two-week summer shutdown. Zandvoort, in his words, is only the first step of a second-half programme, not the whole programme.

PlanetF1 and the FIA car-presentation notes list those five items and nothing else for the SF-26 this weekend. Alpine brought eight changes. Mercedes listed one, a front-drum lip detached from the duct inlet. Aston Martin, still stuck on one constructors’ point after 11 races, also filed five. The “chassis” talk is the floor, the board, the edge, the diffuser, and a small beam wing.

La Stampa put the 2026 cost cap at $215 million (about €184 million) and reported Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur telling rivals there was no mystery in the upgrade rate, because the FIA already checks the books. Mercedes have questioned how much metal Maranello keeps throwing at this car. The Dutch list is the latest answer, filed in public.

Hamilton Had to Start Again on Saturday

Sprint weekends give a team one practice session. Ferrari still brought the floor. Hamilton liked the car in FP1, then Ferrari made what he called subtle changes, and the balance went away.

He finished the 24-lap sprint a distant seventh. Teammate Charles Leclerc, on a soft-tyre gamble Ferrari based on Friday data, came home second behind George Russell’s Mercedes. After that, Hamilton and the garage opened the setup again for grand prix qualifying and, in his words, he was learning a new car with about six laps.

I’m so much happier with the car, honestly. It’s crazy. We changed a lot of things, but it doesn’t really look that big. But the difference it makes in the car is unbelievable.

Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari driver, Dutch GP qualifying

He also told the official championship site that he had lost all his FP1 confidence in sprint qualifying, that the car kept breaking away through the sprint, and that he was building again once the unbelievable difference in the car showed up in the later session. He started his last flying lap from eighth and said his heart sunk, then jumped to fifth, 0.331 seconds off Lando Norris’s pole time of 1:11.163.

The remaining problem, he said, was the tyres. An out-lap and a prep lap still left them unready for Turn 1, which he called nuts, and he could not attack the first corner with any confidence. Rivals, in his view, went out and went for it. Rain held off, so he got another lap. Leclerc, sixth and 0.395 seconds off pole, did not share the optimism. He said engine modes kept changing from Q1 to Q3, the car did different things underneath him, and starting P6 on a track that is hard to pass on is less than ideal.

What Zandvoort Was Built to Prove

Filisetti framed the Dutch circuit as the test bed because it is short on long blasts and heavy on load. Ferrari saved the next engine step for Monza, where those blasts matter. If the floor worked, Zandvoort was supposed to show it in the corners before the power unit got its turn.

The weekend only half answered him. Ferrari’s long-run pace on Friday, and Leclerc’s sprint on the soft, suggested the SF-26 can live with the cars ahead over a stint. Single-lap qualifying, in cool air around 18 degrees, still asked the car to switch a soft tyre on and cover a power hole it does not have the engine for yet. Hamilton said every Mercedes-powered car was up the road and that Ferrari still carry a deficit on power, even if he thinks Sunday race pace will be closer.

That split, factory-ready on Friday, then hunted once rivals have time to tune, is the pattern sprint weekends keep writing for this Ferrari. The new floor did not break the pattern in one practice session. It also did not need to be a new tub to be a serious part. It needed clean running, and Zandvoort’s format did not give much of that.

Mercedes Still Refuses to Name a Favourite

Coverage of Ferrari’s second half has had Mercedes activating a Plan B to cover Hamilton. The on-record line from Brackley this month is cooler than that. Mercedes won eight of the first 11 grands prix, six of them with Antonelli, and after Hungary they led Ferrari by 72 constructors’ points with 12 rounds still on the board, including this one. They are chasing a first drivers’ title since Hamilton’s seventh in 2020 and a first constructors’ crown since 2021.

Deputy team principal Bradley Lord, speaking before Hungary, shut down the idea of freezing the fight around Antonelli, even with Russell 59 points back at that stage and a run of luck that Lord himself listed: a car that would not fire in China, a messy penalty in Monaco, an anti-stall at the Budapest lights.

MERCEDES’ PUBLIC LINE THIS MONTH

• Team first: Lord said that if a Mercedes can win the race, a Mercedes must win the race, and that the constructors’ championship is the primary objective.
• No favourite yet: He called it far too early to think about picking Antonelli or Russell, after the fight had already swung in the space of three races.
• Reliability over politics: Get both cars to the finish, keep them fast, then let the drivers take their shot at the drivers’ title.

That is a team protecting a lead, not a team tearing up its season. Mercedes brought one listed aero tweak to Zandvoort. Russell still took sprint victory and qualified second, 0.102 seconds off Norris. Antonelli qualified third after what he felt was a poor first sector on his last lap. The so-called panic sits in the headlines. The grid has both silver cars ahead of both Ferraris.

Third Row, 53 Points, and a Tight Track

The sprint shuffled the numbers without changing the shape. Russell’s win and Antonelli’s fourth lifted Mercedes to 392 constructors’ points. Ferrari, with Leclerc second and Hamilton seventh, moved to 316, a 76-point hole. Antonelli leads on 224. Hamilton has 171. Russell has 168, three behind the man in red he used to partner.

AFTER THE ZANDVOORT SPRINT

• Drivers: Antonelli 224, Hamilton 171, Russell 168, Leclerc 145, Norris 134.
• Gap at the top: Hamilton is 53 points behind, up from 50 after Hungary, because the sprint paid Antonelli more.
• Constructors: Mercedes 392, Ferrari 316, McLaren 230, Red Bull 180.

Sunday’s starting order is the more honest picture of where the floor landed on a flying lap.

McLaren, not Ferrari, took pole. Norris has 134 points after a first win of the season in Hungary, and he starts ahead of both title protagonists. Verstappen, on a special helmet for what Red Bull billed as his last home race under the current Zandvoort deal, qualified seventh. The Ferrari package was supposed to make this a downforce exam. The exam returned a third row and a 0.3-second hole to the front.

Monza Gets the Engine Step Ferrari Held Back

The floor was never the whole second-half bet. Filisetti confirmed the next power-unit change, ADUO-2, for the Italian Grand Prix on September 4-6, with a new turbo and a larger impeller aimed at the old problem Hamilton keeps naming on straights. He declined to put a horsepower number on it and said full parity with the best engines is a 2027 job.

The FIA built that catch-up path into the 2026 rules. Manufacturers whose internal combustion engine sits far enough behind the best ICE can take additional homologation upgrades this season, plus extra cost-cap room, under the system Formula 1 explains as Additional Development and Upgrade Opportunities. Fall 2 to 4 percent behind and you get one extra homologation this year and another next year, with up to $3.0 million outside the cap. Fall 4 percent or more and it doubles, with up to $4.65 million in the 4 to 6 percent band. Ferrari already used a first ADUO step in Austria. Monza is the second.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The sequence: Barcelona floor and body in June, first engine ADUO in Austria, fast-tracked floor at Zandvoort, second engine step at Monza.
• The turbo: Filisetti’s latest note centres on a larger-diameter impeller for straight-line punch at Monza, not another floor.
• The cap: Rivals are watching Ferrari’s spend against the $215 million limit; Vasseur says the FIA already has the accounts.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• Horsepower: Italian reporting has put ADUO-2 anywhere from about 10 extra metric horsepower to around 15, and at about two tenths at Monza; Filisetti would not sign a figure.
• Parity: Ferrari have privately talked about closing on Mercedes on power; Filisetti’s published view is that a true match waits until next season.

Holding the engine for Monza was the rational split. Zandvoort rewards load. Monza rewards the turbine. The irony of this weekend is that Ferrari still spent a sprint Saturday teaching Hamilton a new balance on the load track, then lined up behind four Mercedes-powered cars anyway.

Overtaking Is Almost Impossible From Fifth

Hamilton goes into Sunday saying the rebuilt car is better and that race pace should let Ferrari hang on to the group ahead. Leclerc’s sprint pass on Norris into Tarzan, using the late life of the soft and a burst of energy Norris no longer had, is the hopeful exhibit. Leclerc also said the same move would have been much harder on Russell, who had kept more straight-line poke in the bank.

A fresh set of softs does not move a car four grid places on its own around here. Two stops are likely, the hard tyre is little known, and a safety car can shuffle a result this circuit will not shuffle with passing. Norris starts from pole with Mercedes on the second row, and both Ferraris start in his mirrors. The floor Ferrari rushed out of Silverstone data gets its first proper grand prix this afternoon. The engine it is supposed to work with arrives at Monza.