Ferrari are already ‘freezing’ development of one part on their 2026 F1 car before testing

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Ferrari could be on track in less than two weeks as 2026 pre-season begins, and they’ve now settled on one part of their car that won’t change before heading to Melbourne.

No Formula 1 team is going to reveal their final designs before the last few days of the second test in Bahrain, and many may even keep a few tricks hidden until the Australian Grand Prix.

Ferrari know just how important the nine days of official running they do before the opening race of 2026 is going to be.

The countdown is on — which 2026 challenger are you most excited to see? 👀

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Team principal Fred Vasseur cannot afford a repeat of last season’s disappointment, and Lewis Hamilton will know from his time at Mercedes that starting a new ruleset slowly can be almost impossible to turn around.

Charles Leclerc delivered a ‘now or never’ warning to Ferrari going into 2026, too, highlighting his demands on the team as he can’t afford for another season to go by where he’s not challenging for the championship.

While pre-season testing in Barcelona and Bahrain will help Ferrari iron out plenty of issues with their new car, it’s now emerged that one part will remain on the car from now until Australia.

READ MORE: All you need to know about Scuderia Ferrari from team principal to factory

Ferrari ‘freezing’ development of mobile wing system for the 2026 Formula 1 season

A report from Formula Uno Analisi Tecnica has shared more details about Ferrari’s plans for pre-season testing.

The Scuderia have different plans for each stage of testing, with the three days they get in Barcelona dedicated to ‘identifying and resolving any systemic anomalies or bugs’ with their electronics system.

Max Verstappen has suggested Red Bull won’t do much running during the first test, and every team will likely be concentrating on reliability rather than speed as their new cars take to the track for the first meaningful run of the year.

Ferrari’s new power unit will need calibration to avoid turbo lag created by the new hybrid engine.

You’re Ferrari: What would be your dream team if Charles Leclerc, Lewis Hamilton and Fred Vasseur all left in 2026?

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On top of this, Ferrari want to understand the energy regeneration better that comes from the brakes, and this calibration will be vital as the season goes on.

The more mileage Ferrari can complete, the better, and it will also help them understand their aerodynamic package better, with Vasseur’s team expected to bring several different variations in order to find the car’s optimum balance.

Ferrari are also said to be ‘freezing’ the mobile wing system that debuted at the post-season test in Abu Dhabi last year.

It will be used for the initial stages of the season due to the fact that Ferrari don’t want to repeat the crash tests already completed.

READ MORE: Who is Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur? Everything you need to know

Ferrari staff working to ‘optimise’ the relationship between the wind tunnel and CFD software

The beginning of the 2026 season is going to tell fans two things about each team on the grid.

Firstly, they’ll quickly discover which teams understood the new regulations the best and could therefore optimise their cars accordingly, or even find loopholes to exploit.

It will also make it clear which team has the best understanding of their simulator data, as millions of calculations are being done to try and design the perfect car.

F1AT reports that Ferrari are still working to ‘optimise’ the relationship between the CFD (computational fluid dynamics) and the wind tunnel.

Ferrari completed an early crash test of their 2026 car and dedicated much of their wind tunnel time last season to this year’s machine.

If their correlation is correct, then they stand a far better chance of being competitive this season.

However, Ferrari have been warned about updates in the past, and that might be down to a misunderstanding between what the data from the wind tunnel is saying, and what the drivers actually need.