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Former Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko has questioned how Ferrari has been able to sustain such an aggressive upgrade programme in the opening phase of the 2026 Formula 1 season.
The arrival of the new power unit regulations was always expected to trigger a fierce development race, with teams still working through unknowns created by the rules reset. But after just eight rounds, Ferrari has already brought several major packages to the SF-26, including a recent update to its internal combustion engine.
That rate of change has stood out because Ferrari has introduced more major upgrades than its rivals. With further parts set to arrive for Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc ahead of the British Grand Prix, scrutiny around the team’s development capacity has intensified. For more on Ferrari’s position heading into Silverstone, read our analysis of why Ferrari arrive at Silverstone with cautious optimism after Austria.
Marko’s concern is not simply that Ferrari has found performance, but that the speed and scale of its upgrade cycle appears difficult to reconcile with Formula 1’s current financial restrictions.
Speaking to F1 Insider, Marko said: “For normal teams, this is virtually impossible.” His comments underline a wider competitive tension in the current era: under a cost cap, development efficiency is supposed to matter as much as outright resource.
The Austrian suggested that major manufacturers may be harder to police because of their wider technical infrastructure beyond the race team itself. He added: “With car manufacturers like Mercedes or Ferrari, I’m not so sure. How does the FIA plan to verify that, in this digital age, the research centres in Maranello or at Mercedes aren’t also working on Formula 1?”
Marko’s remarks place the focus on enforcement as much as performance. The question he raises is whether the FIA can fully monitor the boundaries between Formula 1 operations and wider manufacturer research centres, particularly when so much development work can be conducted digitally.
He also linked the current situation to Red Bull’s previous observations of Mercedes, saying: “In 2021 and 2022, we were also surprised by the number of updates Mercedes implemented at the time—and how they managed to do so within budget. Now Mercedes is asking itself the same question.”
Ferrari’s latest upgrades will therefore arrive at Silverstone under a sharper spotlight. The SF-26 development push may be a sign of impressive execution, but Marko’s intervention ensures the debate around cost-cap transparency is now firmly attached to Ferrari’s 2026 momentum.
He’s a software engineer with a deep passion for Formula 1 and motorsport. He co-founded Formula Live Pulse to make live telemetry and race insights accessible, visual, and easy to follow.