(Motorsport-Total.com) – Mercedes’ lead has melted away. While the Silver Arrows won the first six races of the 2026 Formula 1 season all in a row, the field has since closed up. Of the following six races, Mercedes only won two, with McLaren and Ferrari also each triumphing twice.
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Both pursuers owe this, among other things, to various update packages that have been brought to the car since then. Mercedes, on the other hand, has been rather cautious so far regarding new parts, which team boss Toto Wolff justifies with the financial circumstances.
Due to the cost cap, “we are all simply restricted to a certain degree,” he explains on Sky and emphasizes: “We don’t have the money to bring developments to the car.” However, this statement raises questions.
Because if Mercedes really lacks the money for new parts, why were Ferrari and McLaren able to pursue a significantly more aggressive update plan? “I have already said that we try to spread it evenly over the season,” Wolff explains.
“Some may pursue a different strategy and spend more at the beginning and middle of the year than towards the end,” says the team boss. Meaning: McLaren and Ferrari might run out of money at some point, while Mercedes still has a bit more financial leeway.
“We will see if they can still bring as much to the car towards the end of the season as they do now,” says Wolff and explains that Mercedes plans its own updates “based on our calculations, […] how we can optimize the championship points.”
Why Stella doubts Wolff’s portrayal
“But we simply can’t do what we can’t do,” he clarifies. A statement that Andrea Stella, however, does not buy. The McLaren team boss assumes that Mercedes certainly has the means to bring new parts to the car more regularly.
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“I am sure that the car in the wind tunnel is significantly faster than the one they have on the racetrack, and that they now want to convert part of this potential into upgrades that make it to the real car,” emphasizes Stella.
“So I am quite sure they will have upgrades. Of course, it would be good if that were not the case, but I don’t even want to think about that,” says the McLaren team boss, who also refers to additional financial leeway through an adjustment of the cost cap.
Because the rules for the 2027 season will be adjusted again, each team has received three million US dollars additionally, which may be used either in 2026 or 2027. Accordingly, Stella is sure that Mercedes should still have some breathing room with the budget cap.
The number of updates on the cars has already been a topic several times this year. Red Bull team boss Laurent Mekies, for example, also explained that it is “hard to imagine” that his team could maintain the development pace after some major updates before the summer break in the second half of the season.
And Toto Wolff attacked Ferrari in June when he said: “In my opinion, they should soon run out of money, the budget cap money, because we couldn’t do it like that. We simply lack the buffer under the cost cap to bring as many parts as they do.”
Mercedes is currently still planning a major update for the Grand Prix of Bahrain in Malaysia in October. Therefore, one must “wait a few more races” for new parts, says Wolff.
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