Ferrari is preparing to test a new floor in Zandvoort.

      The two stages of the season following the August break will be very important for Ferrari and will largely determine how successful the second half of the championship will be for the Italian team. In Maranello, they continue to upgrade the SF-26, and in Zandvoort, the Scuderia will present another set of technical updates related to the chassis. If everything works out as Ferrari's engineers expect, the car should handle the winding sections, of which there are plenty on the Dutch track, better.

      As Gazzetta dello Sport writes, these innovations are essentially an evolution of the chassis work that allowed Lewis Hamilton to win the June Grand Prix of Barcelona-Catalonia. The goal was to improve the car's behavior in slow and medium-speed corners.

      In terms of its characteristics, the Zandvoort track appears to be an ideal testing ground to assess how well this task has been accomplished. The Italian publication emphasizes that the version of the floor that appeared on Ferrari cars in Barcelona was initially planned to be introduced only in Silverstone, but the rush to implement it was quite justified.

      Since the races following the stage at the Catalan circuit took place on such different tracks as Red Bull Ring and Silverstone, this allowed Ferrari to analyze the collected information and eliminate certain shortcomings of the new aerodynamic solutions that prevented them from repeating their success in Austria.

      Thus, in Zandvoort, despite the fact that the Dutch weekend program includes a sprint and there will be no time for a full technical check, Ferrari cars will feature an improved floor, and by the time of the home Grand Prix in Italy, Maranello is preparing an upgraded version of the power unit. Its main difference is a new, more efficient turbocharger, which should allow for significant gains on the straights.

      However, technical expert Paolo Filizetti, the author of the article in Gazzetta dello Sport, notes that it is not possible to quantitatively determine the expected progress, and it is unlikely that the innovations that the Scuderia is preparing for Zandvoort and Monza will lead to a significant change in the balance of power, so Mercedes cars will likely remain the fastest. Only in 2027 will it become clear whether the strategy of upgrading technology chosen by Ferrari has proven to be correct.