Mercedes boss Toto Wolff is remaining cautious about whether the team can assemble a car to beat McLaren under Formula 1‘s new regulations in 2026.
With the 2026 cars due to come out on track in less than 50 days in Barcelona, speculation is rife about the competitive order heading into F1’s latest era.
Towards the end of the ground-effect era, McLaren emerged as the benchmark, with consecutive Constructors’ titles and Lando Norris’ maiden Drivers’ Championship.
Mercedes, on the other hand, has miserably faltered, having won eight consecutive titles between 2014 and 2021.
Having gotten its concept wrong at the turn of the ground effects regulations, the German marque had failed to make any substantial inroads with the regulations.
However, given how engine-dependent the new ruleset is expected to be, Mercedes has been tipped to make a triumphant return to the front of the grid in 2026.
But should that be the case, the Austrian erred on the side of caution when asked if he felt the Brackley-based squad could prevail over customer team McLaren.
“Only the future will show. You know, it’s very easy. People tend to try to pin it down to a single factor,” he told media including Motorsport Week.
“Whether it’s someone new in the management. The team principal or technical director, head of aero or lots of geniuses, or not geniuses that have come and changed the destiny of the team.
“But fundamentally it’s a group of people working together. And taking the right decisions collectively, based on the right set of data, with the right infrastructure, with the most correlation between the virtual world and the real world, because that is the big limitations we have.
“That’s where you find out about your car. And if that doesn’t represent the reality once you put it on the road, that’s the biggest risk for any team.”
When prodded about whether he was confident in the resources the team had in place for 2026, he deflected the question with a “glass half-empty” remark.
“You know, I’m never confident. I’m a glass-half-empty person,” added Wolff.
“So we just do everything we can that is in our power to come out with a car, with a power unit, that is competitive enough to fight for a World Championship.”
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