Charles Leclerc isn’t expecting a “magic bullet” from Ferrari’s first engine upgrade at this weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix under Formula 1’s new ADUO system.
ADUO (Additional Development and Upgrade Opportunities) was introduced for 2026 to prevent power units from becoming a huge performance differentiator under the new regulations.
Every quarter of the season, the FIA will rank the five different engines in F1 and the first set of results for 2026 was revealed to teams at the recent Monaco Grand Prix.
Red Bull was deemed the surprise benchmark with Mercedes 2-4% behind on power allowing it one upgrade, while Ferrari, Audi and Honda are over 4% off granting them two upgrades.
Although Red Bull is challenging the verdict, considering how dominant Mercedes is this year, Ferrari and Audi have acted quickly by bringing an updated component to Austria.
But Leclerc has played down expectations for the Scuderia, saying: “We don’t expect magic bullets unfortunately.
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari
Photo by: Michael Potts / LAT Images via Getty Images
“There has been a massive amount of work in the background to make sure the upgraded engine was ready for now.
“We kind of expected to be on the ADUO looking at the trace we had. So we obviously made sure that we were ready for that first race to put it straight on the car.
“It’s not a revolution, but it’s a step in the right direction and that really shows the mentality of the team of trying to put everything together and really pushing the limits of the development to make sure that we don’t leave anything behind.”
Ferrari’s power unit technical director Enrico Gualtieri shared a similar sentiment pre-weekend, by claiming the Spielberg upgrade is “relatively minor” with more coming over time.
It is expected that the Italian manufacturer’s second upgrade, a revised turbo, will come after the summer break as it chases down championship leader Mercedes, which sits 72 points ahead.
But Friday practice at the Red Bull Ring showed that it’ll be difficult for Ferrari to repeat its Barcelona win this time out, as Mercedes star Kimi Antonelli topped both sessions.
Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes
Photo by: Pauline Ballet / Formula 1 via Getty Images
Leclerc, meanwhile, gave his FP1 seat to Ferrari junior Dino Beganovic before finishing a lowly eighth in FP2, 0.841s off the pace, making him “not so confident” of success in Austria.
“But never say never,” he added, with his Barcelona GP winning team-mate Lewis Hamilton 0.597s off Antonelli in FP2.
“On the Friday of Barcelona, there were a few elements that led us to think that there was quite a bit of performance in the car.
“At the moment it’s been a struggle, the whole FP1 that I didn’t do, but as a team I obviously followed FP1, and also FP2 inside the car.
“So it’s been a difficult Friday for the team and we’ll try and put everything together and see what we can recover.”
It doesn’t come as much of a surprise, though, considering Ferrari excels in the slow-speed corners, whereas the Red Bull Ring is a fast track with lap times under 1m10s.
When asked where Ferrari is mainly lacking, Leclerc replied: “Just overall grip, we’ve been sliding from all four tyres since the first lap I’ve done. So for that it’s been very, very tricky, and just a very open balance in general.”
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