Ferrari detail 'important' F1 focus behind 'Spec A' justification

Fred Vasseur has revealed that Ferrari will arrive at the private test at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in January with a "spec A" car.

The team principal of the Scuderia expects its F1 rivals to follow suit, explaining that the emphasis will not be on performance during the five-day closed-door test, but rather on reliability.

With sweeping changes to the F1 regulations, across both chassis and power units, all 11 teams are stepping into the unknown.

Whilst reliability has been strong in contemporary F1 for a number of years, especially as the outgoing engine rules have been in place since 2014, the new campaign could see teams struggle with the durability of their cars.

When it was put to Vasseur that some rivals might run standard versions of their machines, focusing specifically on reliability — particularly of the power unit — as Mercedes has done in the past, he agreed.

"I think everybody will do it," the Frenchman told media, including RacingNews365, during Ferrari's end-of-season press debrief at Maranello.

"In this situation, the most important [focus] is to get mileage. It's not to chase performance; it's to get mileage to validate the technical choice of the car in terms of reliability, and then to get performance.

"But I think everybody will come to Barcelona with, not a mule car, but a Spec A."

Mileage over pure performance

In Spain, teams will be permitted to run on three of the five available days before heading to Bahrain for two official three-day tests in February.

Although teams will progressively build up performance ahead of the season beginning in anger with the Australian Grand Prix in early March, the main focus for each team will be ensuring it has a reliable package.

"We are not used to having nine test days anymore," Vasseur said. "The last four or five seasons, we did three. It's an advantage, but it's also a completely different programme.

"It means that the first target in this kind of season is to get the reliability. You remember perfectly the seasons of 10 or 15 years ago, the first races, when you had a huge percentage of DNFs."

The 57-year-old used the season just gone as an example of how failing to get in adequate running — and things right — can leave a team on the back foot.

Once that has been achieved, the development race can truly begin, with Ferrari planning on being "aggressive" up to its launch on Friday, 23 January, just three days before the Barcelona test commences.

"It means that first we need to get mileage, and what we want to avoid, compared to 2025, when we were lost at the beginning of the season with the disqualification [at the Chinese Grand Prix], we lost mileage, we lost reference, and then you are running after this, and it's a long process," he explained.

"It means that the first focus in Barcelona will be to get mileage with the car to understand the reliability of the car, where we have to improve and what we have to react to.

"Because if you [only] understand something at Bahrain T02 [the final test], you won't have time to react for Australia. 

"It means that the first target of Barcelona will be, for sure, to get mileage more than pure performance."