Lewis Hamilton finished fourth in Sunday’s United States Grand Prix, having suffered with understeer for much of the race.

Hamilton was arguably quicker than Red Bull’s Max Verstappen – Verstappen thinks he would have lost P3 without a late virtual safety car – but a Q3 drop-off hurt Ferrari once again.

While he made a small error at the end of his lap, which was only good enough for fifth on the grid, Ferrari’s telemetry shows Hamilton was up on polesitter Kimi Antonelli before losing three-tenths on the long straight between turns 11 and 12.

Lewis Hamilton’s 2027 Ferrari will almost certainly be down on power

Hamilton estimated after qualifying that Ferrari were losing three to five tenths compared to the benchmark engines, a point he has made repeatedly this year.

Damningly, that calculation hasn’t changed even after two engine upgrades enabled by the ADUO catch-up mechanism.

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Ferrari have downplayed the disappointing results of those upgrades, insisting that major gains were never realistic until the winter anyway.

But the scale of their engine deficit is such that the weakness will surely persist next year.

Indeed, it was reported before the US GP that Ferrari are even behind Audi, a brand-new manufacturer, in the internal combustion department.

Ferrari can and must close the gap, but it would be naive to expect them to achieve parity with Mercedes and Red Bull Powertrains. They will almost certainly remain notably down on power.

Engine manufacturers don’t simply transform their performance in one off-season. One only needs to look at Honda and Renault in the last ruleset as evidence.

Ferrari’s problems aren’t as severe, but equally, catching Mercedes and Red Bull will still be a long-term process, just as it took years before the Silver Arrows’ turbo/hybrid supremacy was challenged.

This isn’t to say that Ferrari can’t challenge for the title for 2027. But if they do so, it will probably be in spite of their engine, not because of it.

There is additional pressure on Loic Serra and the chassis team to offset the inevitable disadvantage. Ferrari have been regarded as the benchmark through the corners for much of this year, but that was only good enough for two Grand Prix wins.

A recent estimate suggested that Ferrari have only gained five horsepower all year and are still 20 behind Mercedes, which may translate to that aforementioned three-to-five-tenth margin. Even if the soon-to-be world champions stand still over the winter, which is highly unlikely, it would be hard for the Scuderia to wipe out that deficit in one go.

18 rounds into a 23-race season, their power unit is still holding them back. That is a clear signal that Enrico Gualtieri and his staff need time.

They should be able to make larger strides over the winter, but the SF-27 will almost certainly be at a straight-line disadvantage. In the quiet period between December and February, there are bound to be exciting leaks about potential breakthroughs, but even halving the gap would be a major achievement.