Ferrari will run the SF-26 in a Schumacher tribute livery at Monza this weekend, reviving the red and black scheme with gold wheels that carried the German through his first season with the Scuderia in 1996.
Both Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc will race the tribute cars. The full design details are being held back for the official reveal in the coming days, and Ferrari has said a wider series of initiatives around Schumacher will follow.
The timing is not accidental. 1996 was the year Schumacher arrived at Maranello and delivered his first Ferrari victory. 2006 was the year of his last. The Monza weekend brackets both anniversaries in one visual gesture.
An era the team has never repeated
The years in between produced five drivers’ titles for Schumacher and the most successful spell in the Scuderia’s history. A German motorsport report put his tally for the team at 72 wins across those eleven seasons, a haul no Ferrari driver has come close to since.
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Corinna Schumacher and the family have been invited to witness the tribute at Monza, according to Motorsport.com, giving the public appearance an unusual weight. Michael Schumacher has lived out of the spotlight since his skiing accident in December 2013, and family attendance at Ferrari events remains rare.
The engine that turns up with the paint
The livery is not the only thing arriving at Monza. Ferrari is introducing an upgraded power unit at the Italian Grand Prix that the team expects to close a significant chunk of the gap to Mercedes.
That matters for the pair inside those tribute cars. A nostalgia weekend for the team is a title weekend for its drivers, and any real step forward on straight-line pace at the fastest circuit on the calendar is the kind of variable that can reshape the closing stretch of the championship.
When it happens
The 2026 Italian Grand Prix runs at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza from 4 to 6 September, with the race on the Sunday.
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