The Formula 1 paddock is quietly waiting on one of the least-televised technical decisions of the 2026 season — a compression ratio rule change due to arrive before the Monaco Grand Prix that has the potential to shuffle the competitive order more than any upgrade any team has yet brought to the track.
On the Suzuka preview edition of his F1 analysis show, LawVS was asked whether Ferrari, which currently trails Mercedes by a clear margin, could actually win races in 2026.
"Oh, yeah. They will," he said. "Basically, we got to consider the compression ratio thing that's coming for the Monaco Grand Prix. You got to take that into consideration. There will be a case for the ADO. Ferrari will probably make loads of tweaks."
The "ADO" — the Aggregated Deviation Ordinance, informally known as the power-unit balance-of-performance mechanism introduced alongside the 2026 regulations — is the part of the new engine rules designed to prevent one manufacturer running away with the championship. Its most-discussed lever is compression ratio. The current rule set locks the four 2026 power-unit manufacturers inside a narrow compression-ratio band. The change due before Monaco is expected to widen that band.
For Ferrari, which has spent the early 2026 races publicly acknowledging that its power unit loses time to the Mercedes during deployment windows, the expected rule tweak is the kind of regulatory lifeline a works team rarely gets mid-season. Technical director Loic Serra's group at Maranello has been briefed on how to respond, and the paddock's expectation — as LawVS put it — is that Ferrari's changes will be significant.
Not everyone is convinced the swing will be decisive. Team principal Fred Vasseur, asked directly about the compression-ratio change ahead of its implementation, played down the scale of its impact, telling reporters he was "not convinced" the new rule would be a "huge game changer" by itself.
Max Verstappen, whose Red Bull power unit is on the losing side of the current compression-ratio spread, has framed it in bluntly numeric terms. Earlier in the year, the four-time world champion told reporters the Mercedes compression-ratio advantage was worth "20 to 30 extra brake horsepower" over his own car. On a grid where qualifying gaps are measured in tenths of a second and race pace in small fractions of a lap, that is the difference between fighting for the front row and watching it from behind the first chicane.
The drama, such as it is, is in how much of that gap the Monaco tweak actually closes. If the FIA's rewrite is narrow — a token widening of the legal compression range — Vasseur's caution will look correct. If the rewrite is generous, giving Ferrari and Red Bull real freedom to reconfigure their compression profile, LawVS's prediction of "loads of tweaks" and race wins may land.
The political subtext is the part the paddock is watching most carefully. Mercedes has spent the opening three races of the 2026 season managing questions about whether its current advantage is too dominant, with George Russell publicly pushing back on the idea that rivals should be allowed to engineer a regulatory pullback. Ferrari and Red Bull have been equally public in suggesting, in less direct language, that a dominant power unit in the first year of a new rule set is exactly the scenario the ADO was invented to correct.
Monaco, more than any other circuit on the calendar, is the worst place to land such a change for a team that benefits from it. The tight, low-speed layout rewards chassis and driver far more than horsepower, meaning even a meaningful engine gain would not fully show up in Monte Carlo lap times. The real test would be Barcelona, Spielberg and Silverstone — the mid-season stretch of higher-speed European rounds where a one-tenth-per-straight difference is visible on the timing screens.
For Ferrari, the internal planning assumption now is clear. If the Monaco rule change is modest, the team will rely on aerodynamic upgrades and compensatory chassis work to chase Mercedes. If the change is generous, Maranello intends to be the first team with an upgraded engine map ready to run in race trim.
LawVS's prediction is a single data point. Vasseur's caution is another. Verstappen's 20-to-30 horsepower estimate is a third. Put together, they describe a paddock that is quietly treating the Monaco FIA meeting as the most consequential date on its internal calendar — even if the television cameras will be pointed somewhere else when the decision lands.
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*Originally published on [News Formula One](https://newsformula.one/article/ferrari-compression-ratio-monaco-grand-prix-ado-rule-change-2026). Visit for full coverage.*
