The F1 paddock has now changed its mind about Ferrari’s 2026 car after watching Australian GP

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Ferrari’s performance at the Australian Grand Prix has been turning heads in the Formula 1 paddock.

Coming into the 2026 season, the Maranello outfit were expected to take a step forward, given that they abandoned development in 2025 quite early to focus on the new regulations.

In pre-season testing, it looked like Ferrari had achieved just that. With Lewis Hamilton’s technical feedback being listened to over the winter, the SF-26 looked like a more predictable car, and its innovations certainly raised eyebrows.

Components such as the Macarena rear wing and a smaller turbo left many believing that the Prancing Horse could be a serious contender. Videos on social media went viral of the SF-26 launching off the grid with incredible speed in Bahrain.

With that said, however, ‘everyone’ in the paddock had Mercedes as the best car over Ferrari after testing. The Brackley outfit were backed as the early favourites, and they showcased that at the Australian Grand Prix as George Russell took victory.

But the win, for the first half of the race at least, was not plain sailing, as Charles Leclerc battled Russell for the lead before the VSCs allowed Mercedes to pull a gap. Ferrari finished third and fourth in Melbourne, and it left the paddock changing its mind.

The F1 paddock now thinks Ferrari’s 2026 car is ‘better’ than Mercedes

Journalist Julianne Cerasoli noted via her YouTube channel that the paddock now thinks that Ferrari have a ‘better’ car than Mercedes. It marks a huge change of mind from testing after just one race in 2026.

“Mercedes has several advantages at the moment,” said Cerasoli. “The car performs well, you can see a car on the track, in the hands of the drivers.

“It’s a car that showed in Australia that it takes very good care of its tyres. [It] also showed in Australia in qualifying that when it gets cold, it’s a car that continues to perform well.

“And there’s also the compression ratio, which isn’t as high as was reported, because the difference isn’t as big as imagined. This was something that the FIA had already been saying previously, that they didn’t reach 18:1, there was no way.

“But there’s also the energy management part, which they’re very good at, right? A very well done job by HPP coordination, right, which is Mercedes making the engine with the Mercedes racing team, which makes the chassis.

“In fact, speaking of that, of course, I already said before, what they’re saying in the paddock is that the Ferrari car is better, but Mercedes worked well in all areas, right, that’s why they built up this advantage.”

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Can Ferrari replicate 2025 Chinese GP heroics in 2026?

With Albert Park being one of the worst circuits for energy management in 2026, many believe that Ferrari could be much closer to Mercedes in Shanghai this weekend.

F1 fans are excited over Ferrari’s radical rear wing as they will bring the design to the Chinese Grand Prix this weekend. Hamilton and Leclerc will be gunning for the race win after missing out in Melbourne.

They will also look to right the wrongs of 2025, after the pair were both disqualified at the end of the race. But Ferrari had been showing strong pace over the weekend, with Hamilton winning the Sprint race from pole.

David Coulthard thinks Ferrari will be ‘more aggressive’ in Shanghai after losing a potential win last weekend. If the SF-26 can perform up to scratch, there is no reason to doubt Hamilton or Leclerc’s chances of a race win that eluded them in 2025.