Fred Vasseur explains Ferrari’s Brazil tyre struggles

Ferrari’s Sao Paulo Grand Prix unravelled around a familiar weakness: getting its tyres into the right temperature range. Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton finished eighth and ninth at Interlagos, a stark contrast to the team’s close second place in Mexico City a week earlier.

Team Principal Fred Vasseur said tyre behaviour had a greater effect on the result than the car’s characteristics or upgrades. Ferrari struggled at different points on both intermediate and soft tyres, leaving its drivers unable to build consistent pace.

Tyre struggles compounded Ferrari’s difficult starts

Both drivers faced 10-place grid penalties after taking new power-unit elements. Hamilton then needed another change after an engine problem in FP3, and started 20th rather than last because other drivers also had penalties. Leclerc, who had qualified fourth, began from 14th.

Hamilton surged 11 places on the opening lap, but soon ran into trouble keeping his intermediates in the right window. He asked to switch to slicks and became the first driver to do so, but the dry tyres did not immediately work for him. Rain returned later, and he survived a spin before finishing ninth. Vasseur felt Ferrari had made the stop too early in an attempt to be aggressive.

Leclerc also struggled to make progress early on, though he found more speed late in the race. He made contact with Liam Lawson while trying to pass for seventh, then received a penalty that left him eighth in the final classification.

Vasseur pointed to a large difference between Leclerc’s pace at the start of a soft-tyre stint and its final laps, when he was nearly as quick as drivers on fresh tyres. He argued that a tyre-window problem could cost far more than the gains expected from an upgrade. Ferrari’s development work with Hamilton and the SF-26 remains part of that wider effort to improve performance.

Penalties and limited top speed left Ferrari on the back foot

Ferrari’s difficulties were not confined to tyre temperatures. Vasseur also cited a top-speed shortfall, saying that starting from the back made recovery especially hard when the dry line was narrow. He described the weekend as a combination of those factors, tyre warm-up and attempts to find an advantage through strategy.

The result came as Mercedes secured the 2026 Constructors’ Championship, with Ferrari finishing a distant second. The team’s wait for its first title since 2008 continues. Vasseur congratulated Mercedes and said Ferrari would return to the fight next year. Ferrari’s tyre questions have also drawn attention in Giovinazzi’s assessment of the team’s tyre unknowns.