De motorwinst van Ferrari in Monza valt mogelijk tegen.
A new turbocharger, a fourth power unit of the season and a home crowd that expects fireworks. Maranello, by most accounts, is not expecting any.
Ferrari will run its evolved 067/6 power unit at the Italiaanse grand prix this weekend, the second and final upgrade the team is permitted under the ADUO system. Italian reports published on Sunday morning suggest the step forward could be considerably smaller than the build-up to Monza implies, and that the mood inside the factory is closer to cautious hope than confidence.
The unit was originally expected at Zandvoort. Ferrari held it back so that it would arrive at its home race, where straight line speed carries more value than almost anywhere else on the calendar.
What is actually in the ADUO-2 package
Think Formula1.it, citing its own sources, the headline change is a new turbocharger. Smaller components around it have been revised as well, with the aim of holding peak power for longer and improving the car's pull towards the end of a straight. It becomes Ferrari's fourth homologated unit of 2026.
The upgrade exists because of the ADUO-systeem. Ferrari was found to be more than four per cent behind benchmark Red Bull in the first ranking of the season and received two upgrade tokens as a result. The first was spent in Austria in June. This is the last one.
Ten horsepower, or fifteen?
This is where the reporting splits, and it is worth being precise about it.
Formula1.it puts the gain at a maximum of around ten horsepower, and stresses that this is the optimistic end of the estimate. Crash.net and Motorsport.com, reporting two days earlier, put the figure nearer fifteen and add a new Shell fuel as a further contributor. Formula1.it rules the fuel out entirely, writing that the new unit should not be accompanied by any change on that front.
Both are media reports. Ferrari has published no figure at all, and the two accounts also disagree on the turbo itself: one describes a new compressor, the other a larger one. Anyone expecting a transformation on Saturday afternoon is working from numbers that nobody at Maranello has confirmed.
A Monza rear wing that nobody has confirmed
Formula1.it raises a second possibility: a rear wing designed specifically for Monza, stripping the car back to maximise top speed and let the power unit do more of the work.
The site is careful about it. Nothing has been confirmed, it writes, so the conditional is obligatory. It also flags a practical limit, because Ferrari has already spent heavily on upgrades this season and the cost cap leaves less room than it did in the spring. Treat the wing as a hypothesis rather than an announcement.
Hamilton has been asking for exactly this
Lewis Hamilton has spent the last fortnight making the case publicly. Speaking ahead of Monza, he said Ferrari has spent half a season down on power and needs to find it.
"We're still second in the constructors' championship. We've got a lot of positives to take from this first half, but the next ones, we really need to turn up the heat if we're going to have any chance to beat these guys," he said.
He was more encouraged by the chassis side after Zandvoort, where an aerodynamic update arrived. "I'm so much happier with the car, honestly. It's crazy. We changed a lot of things, but it doesn't really look that big. But the difference it makes in the car is unbelievable."
Charles Leclerc was less convinced, pointing instead at engine mode changes between qualifying segments that left the car behaving differently underneath him.
Why the weekend matters more than ten horsepower
Ferrari sits second in the constructors' championship, 87 points behind Mercedes after twelve rounds. Hamilton is third among the drivers, 59 behind Kimi Antonelli and level on points with George Russell. You can check the full picture on our Klassementpagina 2026.
The circumstances help. Antonelli takes a complete new power unit at Monza and starts from the back of the grid at his home race. Ferrari arrives with a Michael Schumacher tribute livery and the loudest crowd of the year.
Fred Vasseur, asked what he expects, kept the focus somewhere other than the engine. "I think there is much more into the execution than into the pure potential," the team principal said. "If you want to win, if you want to be in front, you have to do the perfect job."
Zandvoort suggested that is still the harder problem.
