Ferrari’s Expensive Horsepower Problem: Did ADUO-2 Leave the Scuderia Further Behind?
Ferrari entered 2026 chasing engine performance, spent months developing its power unit, and used two additional homologation opportunities to close the gap. Yet after the second upgrade arrived at Monza, Fred Vasseur was still admitting that the Scuderia lacked outright power. With estimates of Ferrari’s deficit ranging from 10 to 30 bhp, the question is no longer simply how much horsepower the team gained. It is how much it still needs, how much usable performance it actually recovered, and whether ADUO-2 delivered value for the time and resources invested.
By DLifestyle Magazine | Formula 1 Technical Analysis
The numbers behind Ferrari’s problem
Before examining the development timeline, it is worth establishing what the horsepower figures mean.
These figures require an important qualification. The FIA has not published the manufacturers’ precise engine-performance measurements, and Ferrari has not released a public before-and-after dyno comparison establishing that its deficit grew from 10 to 30 bhp.
The figures are therefore useful as a framework for examining the problem, not as proof that the turbocharger upgrade itself cost Ferrari 20 bhp.
The established facts are that Ferrari received two additional development opportunities, introduced updated power units in Austria and at Monza, and continued to acknowledge a deficit in outright power after the second upgrade.
January–March: The original turbocharger compromise
The 2026 regulations removed the MGU-H, which had helped manage turbocharger response in previous power-unit generations.
Ferrari responded with a smaller turbocharger intended to reduce rotational inertia and improve response. The objective was to minimise turbo lag—the delay between the driver demanding power and the engine delivering it.
That decision involved a trade-off. A smaller turbo can respond more quickly, but its ability to supply airflow at high engine speeds may be more limited than that of a suitably designed larger unit.
Ferrari was trying to find the right balance between response, peak power and the new regulations’ electrical-energy demands.
The difficulty was that the competitive value of its starting strategy changed when the FIA introduced a five-second pre-start procedure to give drivers additional time to build turbo pressure.
That reduced some of the value of a rapid-spooling turbo at the start, although it did not eliminate the benefits of good throttle response during a lap.
By June 25, Motorsport.com was reporting that Ferrari had committed to a revised engine concept for Austria and was preparing another turbocharger development for after the summer break.
Source: Motorsport.com, June 25, 2026.
June: ADUO gives Ferrari a development opportunity
The FIA’s Additional Development and Upgrade Opportunities system was designed to help manufacturers whose internal-combustion engines fell sufficiently behind the leading benchmark.
Following the first review period, Ferrari, Audi and Honda were found to be more than 4% behind the benchmark internal-combustion engine under the FIA’s performance index. They were consequently granted two additional homologation opportunities in 2026 and two in 2027.
Mercedes qualified for one additional opportunity in each year.
The FIA’s assessment does not translate directly into a published horsepower figure. It uses a confidential performance index, and the regulator has explicitly declined to disclose the manufacturers’ precise results.
That means it would be incorrect to convert Ferrari’s 4%-plus classification directly into a claim that it was a specific number of horsepower behind Mercedes.
Nevertheless, the result confirmed that Ferrari had a meaningful internal-combustion performance shortfall to address.
Source: FIA, ADUO review results, August 26, 2026.
June–July: ADUO-1 arrives in Austria
Ferrari’s first ADUO-related power-unit development was introduced at the Austrian Grand Prix.
Reporting described changes to the combustion system, including a revised cylinder-head approach intended to support different operating conditions and improve combustion performance.
The objective was incremental improvement rather than a complete redesign.
If Ferrari’s early deficit was around 10 bhp, even a small increase in usable engine output could have mattered. A few horsepower can influence acceleration, overtaking opportunities and the time required to reach the end of a long straight.
But a gain at the crankshaft does not translate into a fixed lap-time improvement. The result depends on the circuit, aerodynamic drag, gearing, energy deployment and how effectively the engine can deliver its power throughout a lap.
The Austrian upgrade was therefore the first step in a broader recovery programme, not proof that Ferrari had solved its problem.
August: The cost of preparing ADUO-2
Developing a Formula 1 engine is a lengthy process. Components must be designed, manufactured, tested and validated before they can be trusted in competition.
Motorsport.com reported on August 26 that Ferrari’s second upgraded specification was being prepared for Monza, with the team still working through the checks required before its introduction.
This is where the cost of development becomes important.
The expense extends beyond the turbocharger itself. It includes engineering hours, computer simulations, component manufacture, dyno testing, combustion development, calibration and reliability testing.
Ferrari’s exact expenditure on the two ADUO upgrades has not been publicly disclosed in a sufficiently detailed breakdown to calculate a reliable monetary figure.
It would therefore be misleading to invent a price tag. What is clear is that Ferrari committed significant engineering resources to a development programme that could only be evaluated properly once the new specification reached the track.
Source: Motorsport.com, August 26, 2026.
September 4: ADUO-2 arrives at Monza
Ferrari introduced its second ADUO power-unit upgrade at its home race, the Italian Grand Prix, on September 4–6.
Ahead of the event, Motorsport.com reported that the upgrade was expected to add approximately 15 bhp.
If Ferrari had genuinely been 30 bhp behind its benchmark before the upgrade, a verified 15 bhp gain would theoretically have halved that deficit—provided the rival’s performance remained unchanged and both figures were measured on a comparable basis.
That would have been a substantial improvement.
But the 15 bhp figure was a reported expectation, not a publicly verified measurement of the gain achieved on track.
The distinction matters. An upgrade can deliver less than anticipated, and rivals can continue developing their own power units at the same time.
Source: Motorsport.com, September 2, 2026.
September 6–11: The performance gap remains
Monza offered Ferrari an opportunity to demonstrate that its development programme was working.
The result was disappointing. Ferrari still struggled to match Mercedes’ straight-line performance, and Vasseur acknowledged that the team lacked outright power.
He also explained why attempting to compensate through electrical deployment was not a straightforward solution: using more energy on one straight could leave less available elsewhere on the lap.
This was a significant admission because it suggested the problem could not simply be solved by changing how Ferrari deployed its electrical power.
The team needed a stronger underlying power unit.
Reporting after Monza also suggested that Ferrari’s performance gain from ADUO-2 was much smaller than some observers had hoped. One report described the expected improvement as approximately five bhp rather than the earlier 15 bhp estimate.
If the five-bhp estimate were accurate, the upgrade would have delivered only one-third of the initially reported gain.
However, there is no public dyno data establishing the exact improvement, so five bhp should be treated as a reported estimate rather than a confirmed result.
Sources:
The turbocharger question: did Ferrari create a bigger deficit?
A later report from ScuderiaFans claimed that Ferrari had investigated a more ambitious turbocharger design but abandoned it for 2026 after testing raised reliability concerns.
The report suggested that the specification eventually used was more conservative than some earlier accounts had implied.
If accurate, that would help explain why the expected improvement was reduced. Ferrari may have decided that a potentially more powerful design was not sufficiently reliable to be introduced during the season.
But it would not establish that the turbocharger fitted to the upgraded engine was defective or that it reduced Ferrari’s peak power.
Three separate outcomes must be distinguished:
- A missed target: the upgrade delivers less power than engineers expected.
- A relative loss: Ferrari improves, but rivals improve by more, leaving the gap wider.
- An actual defect: the new hardware introduces a fault or causes a measurable loss of performance compared with the previous specification.
The available evidence supports the conclusion that ADUO-2 failed to close Ferrari’s power deficit as hoped. It does not establish the third outcome, nor does it prove that Ferrari’s deficit increased from 10 to 30 bhp because of the upgrade.
Source: ScuderiaFans, October 2026.
How much horsepower does Ferrari actually need?
The answer depends on which deficit is accurate.
If Ferrari is approximately 10 bhp behind, recovering around 10 bhp would theoretically close that gap, assuming the benchmark remains unchanged.
If the deficit is closer to 30 bhp, Ferrari would need approximately 30 bhp of additional relative performance to eliminate it.
The word relative is important. If Ferrari gains 15 bhp while its rival gains another five, Ferrari closes the gap by only 10 bhp. If Ferrari gains five while its rival gains five, the relative deficit does not change.
Here is how the scenarios compare:
Scenario | Ferrari’s starting deficit | Ferrari’s gain | Remaining deficit, assuming rivals do not improve |
|---|---|---|---|
Smaller deficit, modest gain | 10 bhp | 5 bhp | 5 bhp |
Larger deficit, modest gain | 30 bhp | 5 bhp | 25 bhp |
Larger deficit, expected gain | 30 bhp | 15 bhp | 15 bhp |
Larger deficit, full recovery | 30 bhp | 30 bhp | 0 bhp |
These are illustrative calculations, not measurements of Ferrari’s actual power unit.
They demonstrate why the size of the initial deficit matters so much. A five-bhp improvement would be meaningful if Ferrari were only 10 bhp behind, but considerably less transformative if the true deficit were 30 bhp.
They also illustrate why Ferrari’s reported shortfall cannot be evaluated independently of developments at Mercedes and the other manufacturers.
What was the cost in usable performance?
The distinction between theoretical horsepower and usable performance is crucial.
A gain on a dyno does not automatically become a proportional improvement in lap time. The car must be able to exploit the power through its gearing, aerodynamic package, electrical deployment and traction.
Ferrari’s development programme faced several interconnected challenges:
- Turbo response: the original smaller-turbo strategy was intended to reduce lag, but changes to the starting procedure reduced some of its competitive value.
- Peak power: the engine needed to improve its output relative to the benchmark.
- Combustion efficiency: both ADUO upgrades were intended to improve the internal-combustion engine.
- Energy deployment: Ferrari could not compensate indefinitely for an engine shortfall by moving electrical energy from one part of the lap to another.
- Reliability: the more ambitious turbocharger design was reportedly held back by concerns over reliability.
Even if ADUO-2 produced a small positive gain, that does not mean Ferrari obtained the improvement it needed to compete consistently with Mercedes.
The most reliable public evidence remains Vasseur’s admission after Monza that Ferrari was still missing outright power.
The verdict: did ADUO-2 make Ferrari worse?
There is insufficient evidence to conclude that ADUO-2 increased Ferrari’s engine deficit from 10 to 30 bhp. There is, however, clear evidence that the upgrade did not close the gap as Ferrari needed it to.
If the original deficit was around 10 bhp, a modest improvement could have represented meaningful progress. If the deficit had reached 30 bhp, even the initially reported 15-bhp gain would have left Ferrari with a substantial shortfall.
The later, more conservative estimate of approximately five bhp would leave a much larger gap in that second scenario.
Ferrari’s challenge is therefore not just to find more horsepower. It must produce a reliable power unit whose performance improves faster than that of its rivals.
The Scuderia used both of its 2026 ADUO opportunities, yet its team principal was still discussing a lack of pure power after Monza. The more ambitious turbocharger solution was reportedly postponed, and the financial cost of the work remains undisclosed.
That is a disappointing return on months of development, even if it does not prove that the upgrade itself created a defect.
For Ferrari, the key question now is whether the lessons learned from the SF-26 can be converted into a stronger 2027 power unit.
The Scuderia does not need another impressive development forecast. It needs a verified gain in horsepower, reliable delivery across a full race distance, and evidence that the gap to its rivals is actually shrinking.
Until those three conditions are met, the success of ADUO-2 remains limited—and the true cost of Ferrari’s horsepower problem will be measured in the competitive ground it failed to recover.
