Vasseur left frustrated: Ferrari had the pace to challenge for Austin win

Ferrari left the United States Grand Prix with a second place for Charles Leclerc and fourth for Lewis Hamilton, but team principal Fred Vasseur believes the car had enough pace to fight for victory. The result was solid, he said, yet the gap between Ferrari’s potential and its finish left the team frustrated.

Leclerc had topped Friday practice, while Hamilton was quickest in FP3. Their qualifying positions—fourth and fifth—made a tougher race likely, particularly with the field closely packed. Both made progress at the start on soft tyres, and Ferrari’s two-stop strategy helped Leclerc move into second behind Kimi Antonelli, passing Max Verstappen on the way. Hamilton finished behind Verstappen in fourth.

Ferrari’s race pace could not erase the qualifying deficit

Vasseur said Leclerc had been aiming for the lead early in the race, making second place difficult to accept. He nevertheless described the weekend as a positive one for Ferrari, saying the team had scored more points than any other outfit across the recent run of races.

He considered the strategy call appropriate given that the Ferraris began from fourth and fifth. Starting further back, he explained, can leave a car in dirty air and require a more aggressive approach. Vasseur also felt Hamilton might have been able to close on Verstappen had the Virtual Safety Car not occurred late in the race, though he treated that as uncertain.

The team’s wider conversations with its drivers have featured in our coverage of Vasseur and Leclerc, as well as Hamilton’s influence on Ferrari’s 2026 design choices.

A narrow operating window proved costly in Q3

Vasseur identified the final qualifying segment as the weekend’s main shortcoming. Leclerc’s fastest lap came in Q2, and the team did not put everything together in Q3. He said the operating window for the cars and tyres was extremely tight: a small loss of grip, a gust of wind or excess tyre temperature could cost several tenths. In a tightly grouped field, that can mean a large drop in grid position.

The underlying SF-26 pace, in Vasseur’s view, remained strong from Friday morning to the end of the race. But raw speed alone was not enough. Set-up, tyre management and finding the right conditions at the decisive moment all mattered, and Ferrari’s task is to combine those factors more consistently.

For Vasseur, the frustration was not evidence that Ferrari had a poor weekend. It reflected the sense that the team had been competitive enough to target more—and had not fully converted that opportunity in qualifying or the race.