Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur has moved to ease concerns over Charles Leclerc’s brake change in Barcelona, insisting the Monegasque encountered “no issues” after adopting a different configuration for the weekend.
Leclerc arrived in Spain looking for a reset after a difficult Monaco weekend, where he had been openly critical of his brakes and attributed his late-race crash to the Brembo set-up. That criticism prompted a response from the manufacturer, while Leclerc confirmed he would move towards Lewis Hamilton’s configuration for Barcelona amid rumours Hamilton had switched to Carbon Industries brake discs earlier in the year.
The adjustment was always going to be closely watched inside Ferrari’s garage. Brake feel is deeply personal for a driver, and any change during a race weekend demands immediate adaptation. Yet Vasseur was satisfied with how quickly Leclerc settled into the revised set-up.
“It went well,” Vasseur said when asked about the new brakes. “He needed a couple of laps to accommodate, but he did well. In the end he did well, no issues.”
The brake storyline was only one part of a busy Friday for Ferrari. The team fitted a large upgrade package ahead of FP1 and used the session to compare its new specification against older components, giving engineers valuable back-to-back data.
That made the day particularly significant for Ferrari, even if the conditions in Barcelona complicated the picture. Vasseur described the session as unusual, not only for Ferrari but for the wider field.
“It’s an odd Friday, odd for everybody,” he said. “You know Barcelona, it’s very difficult to put a lap together in these conditions. It’s the same for everybody.”
Ferrari’s upgrade programme added another layer of complexity. “We had a lot of new elements on the car, a new package, different components. It meant we had a lot of back-to-back [testing] to do, it was a good Friday.” The package itself had already been outlined in detail in our coverage of Ferrari’s major SF-26 upgrade package for Barcelona.
Tyre degradation emerges as central challenge
As with several teams, Ferrari’s biggest concern was not simply extracting one-lap pace, but managing the Pirelli tyres. Vasseur acknowledged that degradation was visible across all compounds, although he expects track evolution to help slightly as more rubber is laid down.
“It will be difficult, we saw with all the compounds, the deg is there,” he said. “It’s important, but also we’ll put more rubber on the track and it will reduce a little bit. It will be difficult for sure.”
For Ferrari, Friday therefore delivered two important answers: Leclerc’s brake change worked without drama, and the new package provided useful data. The harder question now is how effectively the team can turn that information into race-weekend performance while managing tyre wear in demanding Barcelona conditions.
Simone Scanu
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.
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