Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has revealed his first impressions of the new Formula 1 regulations, and it’s a glowing review from the Austrian.
The sport is facing one of its biggest ruleset overhaults in recent memory, and with that, comes a new look of the cars that will be on the grid from Melbourne in a month’s time.
Smaller and with different aerodynamic profiles, the cars are now set higher, banishing the ground-effect era to history, much to the relief of many of the drivers.
The new cars do come with their fresh challenges, however, as the new V6 hybrids are totally equal in terms of their power output, giving drivers the additional task of managing battery power every lap.
But Wolff, when asked if there was anything worse about the new cars compared to the old, told select media including Motorsport Week that there was not.
“I don’t see any worse points,” he said. “I’m not overselling here or trying to make a product better than it is.
“But I think the cars are awesome. They look spectacular. They look like Formula 1 cars again. They’re not too small, they’re not too big. They’re not like the whales of the past. The aesthetics are very good.
“I like the engine concept in terms of the boost. George [Russell] went past [Franco] Colapinto [in the Barcelona shakedown] whilst Colapinto was doing his long runs, I think it was like 60 kilometres straight line speed difference and that is super exciting.”
Toto Wolff predicts ‘much more overtaking’ in 2026
With DRS also confined to the past, the ‘active aero’ systems and ‘overtake mode’ are its effective replacements, and with the 50-50 hybrids, requires a driver to be methodical and strategic in when they choose to attempt to overtake a car in front of them.
Wolff predicts that there will be a higher number of overtakes in 2026, but often in ways that would be considered unusual.
“We are going to see much more overtaking,” he said. “We’re going to see it in areas that we wouldn’t expect it.
“Apart from the fact of the quickest cars, the best drivers, it’s also gonna have this additional dimension of intelligent driving and tactics that are going to be easy to understand, in my opinion, for Formula 1.
“So, so far, I haven’t really seen any negatives and again, I wouldn’t bulls**t or oversell anything that I don’t believe. For me so far, it’s ticked all the boxes.”
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