Early switch to '26 a missed opportunity for Ferrari? Leclerc: 'Can't miss what you don't have'

11:22, 18 Apr

byNorberto Mujica

Ferrari has not started its F1 season the way it wanted it. An early switch to 2026 would represent a missed opportunity for Charles Leclerc and the Scuderia? The Monegasque responds.

Four rounds and still not a single podium for Ferrari, save that Sprint race win in China by Lewis Hamilton, which was by all means an outlier if one was to look at the way the first rounds have gone.

So, if Ferrari don't pick up the pace against its rivals, McLaren and Mercedes, and the team decides to focus early on for the 2026 season, will it be a missed opportunity for the Italian outfit and Leclerc?

'For it to be a missed opportunity in F1, there needs to be an opportunity'

"For it to be a missed opportunity, there needs to be an opportunity at one point, but for now we haven't been at the level where we wanted to be from the beginning of the season," the Monegasque quips to media present in Saudi Arabia, including GPblog.

"It's still a long season and we shouldn't give up for sure. We are going to push until the very end," adds Leclerc, before clarifying the reality of the wide scope that an F1 team, particularly one like Ferrari, has in terms of resource and development time allocation across various projects.

"I think one can go with the other as well. We very often say, 'oh, but let's switch to next year's car straight away'. I think these kind of things are more and more with the new structures in Formula 1, can go parallel to one another. So I don't think that you can be extreme in one way or the other."

'If it keeps going this way, then early switch to 2026 F1 season makes sense'

"It doesn't mean that we are only focusing on this season forgetting about next season or vice versa I think we are trying to do the best in both worlds and we'll see where that leads us."

However, if things keep going the way they are going, then an early switch would be the sensible thing to do, thinks Leclerc. "Then of course as soon as the chances of a championship this year is not possible anymore then it probably makes sense to fully focus on 26."