Toto Wolff has admitted that Mercedes is struggling to match the development pace of McLaren and Ferrari in 2026. The Austrian team principal revealed that the team simply does not have enough budget left to fast-track upgrades for the W17 as its rivals have been doing.
Over the past few months, both McLaren and Ferrari have made significant strides by bringing a steady stream of upgrades, turning them into multiple race winners. Mercedes, in contrast, has adopted a more conservative approach, with few major updates since May's Canadian Grand Prix, eroding the team's early-season dominance.
Wolff's comments came after Lando Norris secured his second consecutive grand prix win of 2026 at Zandvoort. He stressed that Mercedes cannot match its rivals' upgrade pace due to the constraints of the $215 million cost cap.
“We haven't got the money to put developments on the car. I said before that we are trying to evenly split that through the season based on our calculations of when we can bring the biggest updates and optimising the championship points. But we just can't do what we can't do,” Wolff told Motorsport.com.
“That's why it is a development race. If you bring an upgrade, each of the top teams will have a couple of tenths in it, at least, and that's what you lose. So, yeah, the ride has been a bit tougher than at the beginning of the year,” he added.
Wolff also hinted at different spending strategies among the top teams. He suggested that some may be using more of their budget early and mid-season, while Mercedes is spreading its spending more evenly. “You will see towards the end of the season whether they are going to be able to deploy as much stuff onto the car as they do now. Someone might have a different strategy in spending more at the beginning and the middle of the year than towards the end,” he said.
Mercedes is not expected to bring any significant upgrades to the W17 until F1 heads overseas again, starting with the Bahrain Grand Prix in early October. Wolff pointed out that the picture would have looked different had Mercedes not struggled with power unit reliability, which has cost Kimi Antonelli and George Russell valuable points and will lead to grid penalties later.
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