Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur has confirmed that the outfit's first large upgrade for the 2026 season will be pushed back to the Miami Grand Prix. The change is a direct result of the cancellations of the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian events following the Middle East crisis.

Calendar shuffle forces teams to rethink upgrade plans

Miami was originally scheduled as round six in early May. With Bahrain and Saudi Arabia removed from the calendar, Miami has moved up to round four. That reshuffle means there will be no grand prix racing in April for the first time since 2020, and teams missed the opportunity to introduce major upgrade packages before the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka.

Why Bahrain mattered

Bahrain was expected to be the logical place for big upgrades because teams ran two of the three pre-season tests at Sakhir. With that race gone, the upgrades most teams had prepared for Bahrain will now be delayed until Miami.

More complications after Miami

There are a few practical headaches for teams even once Miami arrives:

  • Miami and the following Canadian Grand Prix are both sprint weekends, which changes how teams evaluate new parts.
  • Monaco comes next, and that track is traditionally not the best place to assess major upgrades.
  • The next regular race weekend after those three is the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix in mid-June.

Vasseur: everyone will likely bring upgrades to Miami

Vasseur told media, including RacingNews365, that he expects the leading teams to bring significant packages to Miami. He said that cost cap restrictions meant teams were unlikely to show new parts in Melbourne, Shanghai, or Japan, and that most groups had planned a big upgrade for Bahrain.

He added, "I think everybody was supposed to bring a big upgrade in Bahrain, and that this will be postponed to Miami. I can't anticipate what will be the package of Mercedes, Red Bull, McLaren, or us, but let's focus on ourselves. Let's push until Miami. We also have more time to develop and to bring more performance in Miami, and I think it's true for us, but it's true for our competitors."

In short, Ferrari expects the delay to be a shared problem and a shared opportunity. Teams get extra development time, but they also face a tighter window to assess and fine tune those upgrades during a patchwork of sprint and street races.