Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur has laid out exactly what will decide whether the Scuderia can actually challenge for the constructors' championship in the second half of the season. After the summer break, it all comes down to one thing: keeping up the development rate that's already dragging them back into contention. Speaking after the Hungarian Grand Prix, Vasseur explained how Ferrari's season has unfolded in two completely different acts, with Mercedes absolutely flying in the first part before Ferrari found their feet from Barcelona onwards.

More F1 news: Mercedes Spots Major Performance Gap Between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri After McLaren's Hungary Upgrades

Mercedes had built up a 79-point lead after Kimi Antonelli's win in Monaco, but Ferrari has managed to chip away at that advantage by scoring more points than the silver arrows in five of the next races. They've trimmed the gap to 72 points heading into the summer shutdown. The difference, according to Vasseur, is Ferrari's philosophy of bringing small improvements to the car almost every single weekend rather than saving everything for one massive upgrade like some of their rivals. That approach has genuinely worked, and now the challenge is keeping that momentum going when the season resumes.

More F1 news: Vasseur's Relentless Push: Ferrari Won't Stop Upgrading Until the Engine Catches Up

What's particularly interesting is how Vasseur's strategy contrasts with McLaren's approach. While McLaren brings huge upgrade packages but less frequently, Ferrari's been trickling in improvements constantly. Even Mercedes boss Toto Wolff admitted his surprise at Ferrari's upgrade frequency at Austria, questioning whether the Scuderia might run out of cost cap money with their relentless development push. For Vasseur though, maintaining this pace is critical because there's still around 11 or 12 races to go, and he reckons they've got room to improve on the chassis everywhere.

More F1 news: McLaren's Desperate Gamble: Did the Hungary Upgrades Cost Them the Season?

It's not just about hardware though. Vasseur also highlighted that Ferrari's race execution, which he felt was poor in Budapest, needs work. On the engine side, progress is needed as well, though power unit improvements are slower to implement than chassis tweaks. Still, the 58-year-old insists that Ferrari's greatest strength heading into the business end of the season is this ability to keep pushing development forward, and that's exactly what they need to keep doing if they want to turn this constructors' championship race into a genuine battle.

Shop the collection: Kimi Antonelli merch  •  McLaren merch  •  Scuderia Ferrari merch  •  Mercedes-AMG merch