Scuderia Ferrari, 2009–2026: From the End of an Era to the Pursuit of a New One
An examination of sixteen years of decisions, driver selections, pit-wall strategy, technical development and the difficult business of rebuilding Formula One’s most scrutinised team.
The central question is not whether Ferrari has changed. It is whether the team has learned to turn its extraordinary resources, engineering talent and driver line-ups into a championship-winning operation.
In 2009, Ferrari was still living in the shadow of its most successful modern period. The team had won the Constructors’ Championship in 2008, but the departure of the dominant Michael Schumacher era had left a void that victories alone could not immediately fill.
By 2026, Ferrari has become a different organisation in many respects: its technical leadership has changed, its drivers have changed, its working methods have evolved, and the competitive environment has been transformed by new regulations and increasingly sophisticated simulation and data analysis.
Yet the central contradiction remains. Ferrari can produce exceptional drivers, build competitive cars and fight at the front, but the difference between challenging for a championship and winning one often comes down to decisions made in seconds.
To understand how far Ferrari has progressed, we must examine not simply the cars it has produced, but the organisation behind them: who it hires, how it develops its machinery, when it commits to a strategy, and whether it has finally learned to separate emotion from execution.
1. 2009: The beginning of the modern struggle
The story begins with the F60, a car born into a Formula One season that had fundamentally changed its technical direction.
The 2009 regulations brought wider front wings, narrower rear wings, simplified aerodynamics, the return of slick tyres and the introduction of kinetic energy recovery systems, or KERS. The objective was to improve racing, but the changes also rearranged the competitive order.
Ferrari finished fourth in the Constructors’ Championship. Kimi Räikkönen secured the team’s only victory at Spa-Francorchamps, while Felipe Massa’s serious qualifying accident in Hungary forced Ferrari to use Luca Badoer and subsequently Giancarlo Fisichella as replacements. The team was also struggling to match the development pace of Brawn GP and Red Bull Racing. �
Ferrari
The important decision was not simply how to rescue the F60. Ferrari had to determine where to spend its limited development resources.
The team increasingly concentrated on the following season, accepting that its 2009 championship campaign was unlikely to recover. In isolation, that was a rational decision. Continuing to invest heavily in an uncompetitive car could have compromised the development of its successor.
But this approach also established an enduring question: could Ferrari identify the right moment to stop developing a car, without conceding too much ground to its competitors?
That question would return repeatedly over the next seventeen years.
The Ferrari of 2009 was still operating in the aftermath of the Schumacher era. Its organisation had inherited the expectations of a championship-winning machine, but expectations alone could not compensate for technical shortcomings, disrupted driver availability or the superior development work of its rivals.
Ferrari was not short of ambition. It needed a more reliable method of converting ambition into results.
2. 2010–2013: Fernando Alonso and the art of extracting more from less
Ferrari’s decision to bring Fernando Alonso into the team for 2010 represented a change in direction.
The Spaniard was a double world champion, renowned for extracting results from machinery that was not always the fastest on the grid. He joined Felipe Massa, creating a line-up that combined Alonso’s championship experience with Massa’s knowledge of Ferrari and his own history of fighting for the title.
The F10 immediately demonstrated that Ferrari could recover. Alonso won the opening Bahrain Grand Prix, and the team returned to serious championship contention.
But the season also produced one of the most revealing episodes in Ferrari’s modern history: the 2010 German Grand Prix at Hockenheim.
Massa was leading when he received the now-infamous instruction that Alonso was faster. Massa subsequently allowed Alonso to pass, and Alonso won the race. Ferrari was fined for breaching the sporting regulations governing team orders, while the incident reignited the debate about whether a team should prioritise one driver’s championship prospects over the other.
Strategically, the decision was understandable. Ferrari was fighting for both championships, and Alonso ultimately finished the season just four points behind Sebastian Vettel in the Drivers’ Championship.
Nevertheless, the episode demonstrated that Ferrari’s difficulties were not confined to aerodynamics, tyres or engine performance. Its decisions about how to manage two competitive drivers could become as consequential as its decisions about the car.
In 2012, Alonso again carried Ferrari into a title fight with a car that did not consistently possess the outright pace of its principal rivals. He led the championship for much of the season before Vettel secured the title at the final round in Brazil. Ferrari finished second in the Constructors’ Championship.
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These seasons established an important distinction.
Ferrari had become highly capable of maximising a driver’s performance on difficult weekends. Alonso’s racecraft, tyre management and ability to exploit opportunities helped disguise some of the limitations of the machinery.
But there is a difference between building a car capable of winning a championship and relying on a driver to compensate for a car that is not consistently good enough.
Ferrari was learning how to fight with the equipment it had. It had not yet demonstrated that it could consistently produce the equipment required to dominate.
3. 2014: A technical revolution exposes the organisation
The 2014 season was a turning point, although not in the way Ferrari would have wanted.
Formula One introduced a new generation of turbocharged hybrid power units. The technology combined internal combustion with electrical energy recovery, substantially increasing the importance of energy management, power-unit integration and efficiency.
Mercedes mastered the new regulations and established a period of dominance. Ferrari, meanwhile, struggled with the F14 T’s power unit and aerodynamic package.
The team failed to win a race for the first time since 1993 and finished fourth in the Constructors’ Championship. Alonso finished sixth in the Drivers’ standings, while Kimi Räikkönen, returning to Ferrari, finished twelfth.
Ferrari
The management structure was also in upheaval.
Stefano Domenicali departed as team principal in April. Marco Mattiacci replaced him, only to be succeeded by Maurizio Arrivabene after the season. �
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This succession of changes illustrated the difficulty of rebuilding a complex technical organisation while simultaneously trying to restore its competitive position.
A Formula One team cannot solve every weakness by replacing its leader. Nor can it expect a new team principal to transform the engineering department, power-unit programme, race operations and driver relationships immediately.
Ferrari needed to establish whether its problems came from individual decisions, the broader organisation or a combination of both.
The answer would require several seasons to emerge.
4. 2015–2018: Sebastian Vettel, renewed ambition and the cost of missed opportunities
Sebastian Vettel arrived in 2015, replacing Alonso. The four-time world champion represented a fresh attempt to recreate the successful relationship between a technically focused organisation and a driver capable of leading a championship campaign.
The initial results were encouraging.
Ferrari won three races in 2015, with Vettel delivering victories in Malaysia, Hungary and Singapore. The team became Mercedes’ principal challenger, and the SF15-T represented a substantial recovery from the previous season.
The improvement mattered because it showed Ferrari could respond to failure without abandoning its long-term ambitions.
However, 2016 brought another setback. Ferrari failed to win a race and struggled to maintain its competitiveness against Mercedes and Red Bull. The promise of the previous season had not developed into a sustained challenge.
Then came 2017.
The SF70H was a genuinely competitive car, and Ferrari challenged Mercedes for much of the first half of the season. Vettel won five races, and the team appeared to have found a credible route back to the top.
But the second half of the season was less successful. Reliability problems and driver errors contributed to the collapse of the title challenge.
In 2018, Ferrari again produced a car capable of challenging for the championship. Vettel won five races, but costly mistakes and Mercedes’ superior execution helped Lewis Hamilton secure the title. Ferrari finished second in the Constructors’ Championship.
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These two seasons are essential to understanding Ferrari’s later development.
The team had progressed beyond the limitations of the 2014 car. It could now produce machinery capable of winning races and fighting for championships.
What remained uncertain was whether Ferrari could sustain that performance across an entire season.
The distinction between a competitive car and a championship-winning organisation was becoming increasingly apparent.
Ferrari could qualify at the front, develop a strong aerodynamic concept and give Vettel opportunities to win. Yet a championship required more than individual victories. It demanded consistent operational decisions, reliable machinery, effective tyre management and the ability to respond when a rival changed its strategy.
Ferrari’s problem was no longer simply that it lacked speed. Too often, it failed to convert speed into the maximum possible result.
5. 2019: Charles Leclerc arrives, and Ferrari begins changing its identity
The arrival of Charles Leclerc in 2019 was one of Ferrari’s most consequential driver decisions of the period.
Leclerc had progressed through the Ferrari Driver Academy and earned promotion to the senior team after an impressive debut season with Sauber. His appointment alongside Vettel created a new dynamic: the established four-time world champion was now sharing the garage with a young driver whose potential had already become difficult to ignore.
Ferrari also underwent an organisational restructuring, with Mattia Binotto taking over as team principal. The team presented 2019 as the beginning of a new era, adopting the identity of #essereFerrari.
Ferrari
Leclerc won at Spa-Francorchamps and Monza, giving Ferrari its first Italian Grand Prix victory in nine years. Vettel won in Singapore, and the team recorded three victories overall.
The SF90 was particularly effective in qualifying, but its race performance was less consistently decisive.
The season exposed a new strategic problem. Ferrari was no longer merely managing a veteran driver and a supporting teammate. It had two drivers with legitimate ambitions, different strengths and the potential to win races.
Managing that relationship required clear priorities and precise communication.
Leclerc’s promotion also signalled a more deliberate approach to driver development. Ferrari was willing to invest in its own young talent rather than relying exclusively on established champions recruited from elsewhere.
That change would become increasingly significant as the team moved towards the next generation of regulations.
But 2019 also demonstrated that a change of identity does not automatically produce a change in results. Ferrari still had to resolve the operational and technical weaknesses that had prevented it from converting previous championship opportunities.
6. 2020–2021: The lowest point becomes the foundation for rebuilding
The 2020 season was one of Ferrari’s most difficult in decades.
The SF1000 struggled for competitiveness, and the team failed to win a race. Ferrari finished sixth in the Constructors’ Championship, its worst position in forty years.
Vettel’s departure was announced before the season began, leaving Leclerc as the centre of the team’s immediate future.
The crucial question was how Ferrari would respond.
In previous periods, a collapse in performance might have triggered another rapid succession of management changes. Instead, the organisation maintained greater continuity under Binotto while working to establish a foundation for longer-term improvement.
Formula One’s cost-cap framework, introduced in this period, also changed the environment in which teams operated. Financial resources alone could no longer be treated as an unrestricted solution to competitive problems. Development decisions increasingly required careful prioritisation.
Ferrari’s recovery began in 2021. The team finished third in the Constructors’ Championship, more than doubling its points tally from 2020. Carlos Sainz joined Leclerc and scored four podiums, while the team improved its overall competitiveness. �
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This was not a championship-winning season, but its significance lay elsewhere.
Ferrari had started to rebuild without demanding that every problem be solved immediately.
It was developing a more stable driver line-up, improving the car and preparing for the major technical changes scheduled for 2022.
The lesson was simple: a sustainable recovery required more than a single successful upgrade or an impressive race. Ferrari needed an organisation capable of learning from a poor season and carrying those lessons into the next one.
7. 2022: Ferrari returns to the front, but the championship remains out of reach
The introduction of new aerodynamic regulations in 2022 offered Ferrari an opportunity to reset its competitive position.
The regulations were designed to reduce the disruptive effects of turbulent air and encourage closer racing. With the competitive order changing, Ferrari could no longer simply rely on refining the previous generation of cars.
The team responded with the F1-75, a car that immediately demonstrated considerable pace.
Leclerc won two of the opening three Grands Prix, and Ferrari looked capable of mounting a serious championship challenge. Sainz secured his first Formula One victory at Silverstone, reinforcing the strength of the driver pairing.
For the first time in several seasons, Ferrari had a car that could regularly compete at the front.
But the championship campaign unravelled through a combination of reliability problems, driver errors and strategic missteps. Ferrari finished second in the Constructors’ Championship, well behind Red Bull.
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This season is perhaps the clearest example of Ferrari’s central weakness during the modern era.
The team had made substantial progress in car development. It had recruited a capable driver pairing and created a competitive technical package. Yet it struggled to turn those advantages into sustained championship momentum.
Consider the difference between qualifying and race strategy.
Qualifying establishes the starting position, but the race requires a different set of decisions. Engineers must assess tyre degradation, undercut opportunities, safety-car probabilities, weather changes and the pace of competitors. A strategy that appears optimal before the start can become disastrous when circumstances change.
Ferrari’s difficulties in 2022 were not all strategic, and it would be inaccurate to attribute the lost championship entirely to the pit wall. Reliability failures and driver mistakes also mattered.
Nevertheless, the season exposed the cost of inconsistency.
A fast car creates opportunities. A championship-winning operation must repeatedly recognise and exploit them.
Ferrari had recovered its speed, but its execution remained vulnerable.
8. 2023: Carlos Sainz demonstrates the value of independent thinking
Ferrari’s 2023 campaign was another lesson in the importance of operational execution.
Red Bull dominated the season, leaving Ferrari with limited opportunities to challenge for the championship. The Scuderia finished third in the Constructors’ standings, narrowly behind Mercedes.
There was, however, one particularly revealing victory.
At the Singapore Grand Prix, Sainz won for Ferrari and became the only driver outside Red Bull to win a Grand Prix that season.
His performance was notable not simply because he delivered a victory, but because of the way he managed the race.
Sainz controlled the pace while maintaining enough margin to protect his position. Late in the race, he deliberately allowed Lando Norris to remain within DRS range, giving the McLaren driver assistance against the approaching Mercedes cars.
It was a calculated decision that helped Sainz retain the lead.
The Singapore victory demonstrated the value of a driver who understands not only his car’s performance but also the wider strategic situation unfolding around him.
It also highlighted an important distinction in Ferrari’s development: the team could benefit from intelligent decisions made by its drivers, even when its own machinery was not capable of dominating the field.
However, one successful race did not solve the wider problem. Ferrari needed to produce a car capable of competing across a variety of circuits, while improving its consistency over a full season.
9. 2024: Fred Vasseur begins to establish a more competitive Ferrari
By 2024, Ferrari’s rebuilding process had entered a new phase.
Fred Vasseur, who became team principal in 2023, had inherited an organisation with substantial technical resources, two established drivers and a history of championship disappointments.
His challenge was to improve the team’s competitiveness while creating the conditions for longer-term success.
The 2024 season produced tangible results.
Leclerc won in Monaco and at Monza, while Sainz won in Australia and Mexico City. Ferrari also won the United States Grand Prix sprint through Leclerc’s teammate Sainz’s competitive campaign? No: the important distinction is that Ferrari’s five Grand Prix victories came through Leclerc and Sainz across the season, rather than through a single dominant driver.
Ferrari finished second in the Constructors’ Championship, losing to McLaren at the final round. �
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The season suggested that the team was becoming more capable of challenging consistently. Its victories came at different types of circuits, and its drivers could capitalise on opportunities rather than relying on isolated circumstances.
Vasseur’s approach was not to promise an immediate transformation. The more important objective was to build a team capable of sustaining a title challenge.
That meant improving communication between the trackside operation and Maranello, developing the car more effectively and establishing a structure in which technical decisions could be assessed against clear performance objectives.
Ferrari’s recruitment decisions also began to reflect a longer-term ambition. The announcement that Lewis Hamilton would replace Sainz for 2025 represented one of the most significant driver moves in modern Formula One.
It was a decision that brought enormous experience to Ferrari, but it also carried risks.
Hamilton would need to adapt to a different engineering culture, new procedures and a car designed around a different set of characteristics. Leclerc, meanwhile, was already established within the organisation and had spent years helping develop Ferrari’s machinery.
Ferrari was betting that Hamilton’s experience and championship-winning instincts could complement Leclerc’s speed and familiarity with the team.
The move raised a crucial question: could Ferrari manage two high-profile drivers while maintaining the operational discipline required to win championships?
10. 2025: The Hamilton experiment exposes the difficulty of integration
Hamilton’s arrival in 2025 represented the culmination of Ferrari’s pursuit of a driver capable of bringing championship experience to its rebuilding project.
Yet the season proved difficult.
The SF-25 was challenging to master, particularly for Hamilton, who won the Chinese Grand Prix sprint but otherwise failed to trouble the podium. Leclerc secured seven Grand Prix podiums, but Ferrari never became a serious championship contender and finished fourth in the Constructors’ Championship.
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This was a significant setback after the progress made in 2024.
The appointment of a seven-time world champion did not automatically resolve Ferrari’s technical or operational limitations. Nor could Hamilton’s experience guarantee that he would immediately understand the behaviour of a new car.
The result reinforced a lesson Ferrari had encountered repeatedly since 2009: the quality of the driver line-up cannot compensate indefinitely for a car that is difficult to exploit.
Driver recruitment must also be evaluated against the engineering environment in which the driver will operate.
A champion may bring valuable feedback, racecraft and experience, but the organisation must translate that information into improvements. If the car’s underlying characteristics are difficult to reconcile with a driver’s preferences, the adjustment process can become lengthy.
For Ferrari, 2025 was therefore not simply a disappointing year for Hamilton. It was a test of the team’s ability to integrate a major new appointment while maintaining its existing development programme.
The answer was mixed.
Ferrari remained capable of producing podium performances, but the overall championship result showed that the organisation had not yet established the consistency required to challenge for the title.
The 2026 regulation changes offered another opportunity to reset that trajectory.
11. 2026: Ferrari’s new era and the race to close the gap
The 2026 season marks a major technical transition for Formula One, with new chassis and power-unit regulations changing the competitive landscape.
For Ferrari, the challenge is no longer simply to improve upon the previous car. It must develop an entirely new package while adapting to different demands for electrical energy deployment, power-unit efficiency and aerodynamic performance.
The SF-26 represents that effort.
As of 16 October 2026, Formula One’s official team profile lists Ferrari second in the Constructors’ Championship, with 444 points after 17 Grands Prix. The team has recorded two Grand Prix victories, eleven Grand Prix podiums and four retirements. Leclerc and Hamilton remain the driver pairing, with Vasseur leading the team. �
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Those numbers provide a useful measure of Ferrari’s present position.
The team is not in the same condition as it was in 2009, when it finished fourth and won only once. It has returned to the front of the championship and has demonstrated an ability to win races under the latest regulations.
But second place is not the same as championship success.
Ferrari is still chasing Mercedes, and the competitive gap means that its development decisions matter enormously.
The upgrade strategy: Speed versus sustainability
One of the defining features of Ferrari’s 2026 campaign has been its aggressive development programme.
Ferrari has introduced upgrades in an effort to close the gap to Mercedes, including a power-unit update in Austria. Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff warned in June that Ferrari’s rate of development could place pressure on its remaining budget under the cost cap. He also acknowledged that Ferrari had reduced the performance gap. �
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This presents Ferrari with a difficult strategic calculation.
Every upgrade must be evaluated not only for its immediate performance gain, but also for its development cost, reliability implications and potential to improve the car at future circuits.
A component that delivers a small gain at one track may be less valuable than an upgrade that improves performance across a wider range of conditions.
The timing matters, too.
Introduce an upgrade too late and there may be insufficient time to understand or exploit it. Introduce too many changes simultaneously and engineers may struggle to identify which component is responsible for a performance improvement or deterioration.
The ideal development programme is not necessarily the one that produces the largest number of upgrades. It is the one that identifies the most valuable changes and introduces them at the right time.
Ferrari’s 2026 approach demonstrates its willingness to pursue performance aggressively. Whether that approach proves sustainable across the season is a separate question.
Technical leadership and the importance of integration
Ferrari’s current technical leadership includes Loïc Serra and Enrico Gualtieri, reflecting the importance of chassis development and power-unit integration within the organisation. �
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The distinction matters because a modern Formula One car cannot be developed as a collection of independent components.
Aerodynamics, suspension, tyres, cooling, energy recovery and power delivery interact continuously. An improvement in one area may create a compromise in another.
For example, a more aggressive aerodynamic package may generate greater downforce but also increase drag. A suspension change may improve tyre contact in one phase of a corner while compromising performance elsewhere. Power-unit deployment must be coordinated with braking, acceleration and the car’s aerodynamic efficiency.
The challenge is therefore not simply to make each component better. It is to make the entire car work as a coherent system.
Ferrari’s history since 2009 suggests that this integration is one of the most important areas in which the team must continue to improve.
The drivers: Experience and development
Leclerc and Hamilton represent different forms of experience.
Leclerc has spent years within Ferrari’s technical environment. He understands the organisation, has developed relationships with its engineers and has repeatedly demonstrated his ability to extract strong qualifying performances from its cars.
Hamilton brings a different perspective. His championship experience includes periods of dominance and seasons in which Mercedes had to work through difficult technical problems. He has experienced multiple regulation cycles and understands the demands of building a title-winning campaign.
In principle, the pairing offers Ferrari valuable complementary knowledge.
But two accomplished drivers cannot guarantee success unless the team establishes a clear process for gathering feedback, prioritising development and making decisions under pressure.
The important question is not which driver has the greater reputation. It is whether Ferrari can use the information provided by both drivers to improve the car and execute races more consistently.
That is where the organisation’s progress must ultimately be measured.
12. The pit wall: Has Ferrari actually become better at strategy?
To compare Ferrari in 2009 with Ferrari in 2026, we must look beyond the championship standings.
A team’s operational performance is revealed in the decisions that determine whether its car finishes where its pace suggests it should.
The pit wall must make several decisions simultaneously. When should a driver stop? Which tyre compound offers the best balance between immediate pace and long-term durability? Is an undercut worth attempting? Should the team react to a rival or remain committed to its original plan? And, perhaps most importantly, when should it abandon a strategy that is no longer working?
These questions have always existed in Formula One. What has changed is the quantity of information available to answer them.
In 2009, teams already used sophisticated telemetry, race simulations and extensive data analysis. It would be wrong to suggest that strategy was simply guesswork in that era.
However, modern teams operate with increasingly sophisticated simulation systems, more extensive performance modelling and a greater ability to evaluate alternative scenarios before and during a race.
Ferrari has developed alongside these advances.
The difficulty is that better information does not automatically produce better decisions.
A strategy model is only as useful as its assumptions, and a perfectly calculated pit stop can still be the wrong decision if the race evolves unexpectedly. A safety car, an unexpected change in tyre degradation or a competitor’s unusually strong pace can invalidate a plan within seconds.
Ferrari’s historical problem has often been the conversion of information into decisive action.
The 2010 German Grand Prix illustrated the tension between sporting rules, team orders and championship priorities. The 2022 campaign showed that competitive machinery could be undermined by a combination of strategic errors, reliability problems and mistakes. Singapore in 2023 demonstrated how a driver could use race management and tactical awareness to turn an opportunity into victory.
These examples are different, but they point towards the same conclusion.
Ferrari has become better at creating competitive opportunities. Its continuing challenge is to ensure that its race operations consistently convert those opportunities into the strongest possible results.
It is also important to distinguish a poor outcome from a poor decision. A sensible strategy can fail because of circumstances outside the team’s control, while an apparently successful decision may simply have benefited from luck.
To measure genuine improvement, Ferrari’s decisions must be judged against the information available when they were made, rather than solely against the final result.
That distinction matters when assessing the pit wall in 2026. Ferrari’s second-place championship position and two Grand Prix victories demonstrate competitiveness, but they do not, by themselves, prove that its strategic execution has reached championship-winning standards.
A complete assessment would require race-by-race comparisons of predicted and actual tyre degradation, pit-stop timing, safety-car decisions, lost track position, reliability and the performance available from each car.
Without that analysis, declaring Ferrari’s strategy either transformed or unchanged would be premature.
13. Driver selection: From replacing champions to building a competitive structure
Ferrari’s driver decisions also reveal how its priorities have evolved.
Period
Driver pairing
Strategic significance
2009
Felipe Massa and Kimi Räikkönen, followed by Massa’s replacements after his accident
Maintaining competitiveness during a difficult season and managing an unexpected loss of a regular driver.
2010–2013
Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa
Combining a double world champion’s ability to maximise results with an established Ferrari driver.
2014
Fernando Alonso and Kimi Räikkönen
Bringing two experienced champions together during a difficult technical transition.
2015–2018
Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Räikkönen
Building a new championship challenge around Vettel’s experience and Räikkönen’s familiarity with Ferrari.
2019–2020
Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc
Introducing Ferrari’s young academy graduate alongside an established world champion.
2021–2024
Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz
Establishing a competitive, relatively stable pairing capable of winning races.
2025–2026
Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton
Combining Leclerc’s experience within Ferrari with Hamilton’s seven world championships and extensive technical experience.
The underlying strategy has changed.
Ferrari once relied heavily on experienced champions to restore its competitiveness. Alonso and Vettel were recruited to lead championship campaigns, while Räikkönen brought experience and a previous world title.
Leclerc’s development represented a different investment: Ferrari promoted a driver who had progressed through its own academy.
The subsequent partnership with Sainz provided continuity while Ferrari rebuilt its technical foundations. Hamilton’s arrival then represented an attempt to combine an established internal leader with one of the sport’s most successful drivers.
There is no universally correct driver-selection model. Two experienced champions can provide enormous technical knowledge, while a younger pairing can offer continuity and a longer development horizon.
What matters is whether the drivers suit the car, work effectively with the engineers and contribute to a shared competitive objective.
Ferrari’s challenge in 2026 is to make the most of its current pairing without allowing the scale of its drivers’ reputations to overshadow the engineering and operational work required to win.
A driver’s name can attract attention. It cannot substitute for a competitive car.
14. The differences between Ferrari in 2009 and Ferrari in 2026
The most significant changes become clearer when we compare the organisation across the two periods.
Area
Ferrari in 2009
Ferrari in 2026
Competitive position
Fourth in the Constructors’ Championship, with one Grand Prix victory.
Second in the Constructors’ Championship after 17 Grands Prix, with two victories.
Technical environment
Major aerodynamic changes, returning slick tyres and the introduction of KERS.
A new generation of chassis and hybrid power-unit regulations, with greater emphasis on electrical energy management.
Development priorities
Ferrari shifted its focus towards the following season as its 2009 title prospects faded.
Ferrari has pursued an aggressive programme of upgrades to close the gap to Mercedes.
Driver strategy
An established pairing disrupted by Massa’s accident and subsequent replacements.
Leclerc and Hamilton combine experience within Ferrari with extensive championship experience.
Management
Ferrari operated within the established post-Schumacher structure.
Fred Vasseur leads a modern technical organisation that includes Loïc Serra and Enrico Gualtieri.
Financial environment
The cost-cap framework that now constrains development spending was not in place.
Development decisions must account for the financial limits governing Formula One teams.
Central challenge
Recovering competitiveness after a major regulation change.
Turning competitiveness under a new regulation cycle into a sustained championship challenge.
Sources: Ferrari’s official 2009 season history and Formula One’s official team and season records. �
Ferrari +2
One point deserves particular attention: Ferrari’s second-place position in 2026 is evidence of a competitive recovery, not proof that every aspect of the organisation has improved.
Championship positions are affected by the performance of rivals, the regulations and the reliability of the cars. Ferrari must be assessed on its own execution as well as its final position.
Nevertheless, the contrast is significant.
In 2009, Ferrari was trying to recover from a major technical setback while deciding where to direct its development resources. In 2026, it is competing at the front and attempting to improve a car that is already capable of winning.
That is genuine progress.
The remaining question is whether Ferrari can sustain it.
15. Has Ferrari stopped making the same mistakes?
The answer is more complicated than either a simple yes or no.
Ferrari has changed its management, recruited different technical leaders, developed its driver programme, improved its machinery and adapted to new financial and technical regulations.
Its recovery after 2020 also demonstrated a greater willingness to build a foundation rather than demand an immediate return to dominance. Formula One’s retrospective analysis of that period identified continuity and long-term development as important elements of Ferrari’s rebuilding strategy.
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But several recurring challenges remain.
First, development must be prioritised correctly. An aggressive upgrade programme can reduce a performance gap, but spending resources quickly is not the same as spending them effectively.
Second, race strategy must remain adaptable. A plan should provide direction without becoming an obstacle to responding to changing conditions.
Third, the relationship between the drivers and the technical team must remain productive. Feedback from Leclerc and Hamilton is valuable only if the organisation can translate it into measurable improvements.
Fourth, Ferrari must distinguish between a competitive season and a championship-winning season. Finishing second can demonstrate substantial progress, but it also means another team has executed the championship campaign more successfully.
The history from 2009 onwards shows that Ferrari is capable of responding to setbacks. The difficulty has been sustaining the progress long enough to win a title.
That is why 2026 should not be treated as the conclusion of Ferrari’s rebuilding story.
It is another test of whether the lessons of previous seasons have become part of the organisation’s everyday decision-making.
Conclusion: The Ferrari that has changed, and the Ferrari that remains
There is something particularly frustrating about following Ferrari across these seventeen years.
The team has never lacked the resources, history or ambition to compete at the highest level. It has employed world champions, developed exceptional engineers and produced cars capable of winning races at some of Formula One’s most demanding circuits.
In 2009, Ferrari was trying to recover from a technical setback while its competitors found advantages in a changing regulatory environment. By 2014, a new power-unit era had exposed the limits of its technical package. In 2017 and 2018, it had competitive machinery but failed to complete the championship challenge. In 2022, it returned to the front only to see its title hopes undermined by a combination of problems. In 2025, the arrival of Hamilton failed to produce the immediate transformation that many had anticipated.
Now, in 2026, Ferrari is once again a race-winning team.
Its second-place championship position reflects a substantial difference from the difficulties of 2009 and the collapse of 2020. The team has demonstrated that it can recover, adapt and compete under another major technical revolution.
But Ferrari’s history also warns against confusing recovery with completion.
The Schumacher era showed what happens when technical leadership, driver performance and race operations align over several seasons. The more recent history demonstrates how quickly that alignment can disappear.
Ferrari has become more sophisticated, more structured and more capable of rebuilding after failure. Its technical development programme, driver recruitment and approach to long-term competitiveness have all evolved.
Yet the final measure of that progress is not how many changes Ferrari has made. It is whether those changes have created a team capable of winning championships consistently.
For Ferrari, the next step is not merely to build a faster car or recruit another celebrated driver. It is to make the entire organisation operate at the level its best individual components have already demonstrated.
That means a car that performs across different circuits, upgrades that deliver predictable gains, pit-wall decisions that respond intelligently to changing races and drivers who can trust the team to support their championship ambitions.
Between 2009 and 2026, Ferrari has learned how to recover. The remaining challenge is to prove that it has learned how to finish the job.
That is the distinction between a famous racing team and a championship-winning institution.
And it is the question that will continue to define Scuderia Ferrari until the day its long pursuit finally ends with another Drivers’ World Championship.
Editorial package for DLifestyle Magazine
Headline: Scuderia Ferrari, 2009–2026: Seventeen Years of Change, Hard Lessons and the Pursuit of a Championship
Principal sources
Ferrari — 2009 season history�
Formula One — Ferrari year-by-year history�
Formula One — Ferrari team profile and 2026 statistics�
Formula One — Ferrari’s 2014 season�
Formula One — Ferrari’s development and rebuilding strategy�
Editorial note: The article distinguishes documented results from broader analysis. The assessment of Ferrari’s strategic improvement is qualitative; a definitive numerical comparison of pit-wall performance would require a race-by-race analysis of decisions and their expected outcomes.
