Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has said the team "haven't got the money" to match McLaren and Ferrari's current rate of upgrades. Although Kimi Antonelli leads team-mate George Russell by 81 points and Mercedes are 145 points clear of Ferrari in the constructors' championship, Wolff warned ahead of the first triple-header, which starts in Baku this Saturday, that this is "a moment where a championship position can be strengthened or lost".
"We just do what we can"
In an interview reported by Sky Sports on 25 August, straight after Zandvoort, Wolff said bluntly that the team did not have the money to bring developments to the car. The 2026 cost cap is $215 million, and Mercedes' approach is to spread spending evenly across the season "according to our calculations". Meanwhile McLaren brought upgrades to the last two races and won both, while Mercedes have made only minor tweaks to the W17 since the Canadian GP at the end of May. After winning the first six races, they managed only two wins in the last six, the same as Ferrari and McLaren.
"We just do what we can. That's why it's a development race. Towards the end of the season we'll see whether they can keep bringing as much to the car as they are now."
Wolff suggested that "someone may have chosen to spend more early and mid-season and less later on", meaning rivals could run into the same constraints down the line. He denied that Mercedes had front-loaded their budget. At the time Antonelli led Russell and Hamilton by 59 points, a margin that grew to 81 over Russell after Monza and Madrid.
| Championship | Leader | Gap to second |
|---|---|---|
| Drivers | Kimi Antonelli | 81 pts over George Russell |
| Constructors | Mercedes | 145 pts over Ferrari |
A warning before the triple-header
In comments after Madrid reported by RacingNews365, Wolff said the team was now entering the first of three triple-headers that close out the season, a tough period for both the factory and the trackside crew. He added that with little time to regroup between races, preparation, reliability and operational execution become even more important.
On recent results he said they were "encouraging but guarantee nothing", adding that Baku "will expose weaknesses very quickly". Of Madrid, he said the team had driven well but had also benefited from the race playing out in their favour, concluding that several teams can fight at the front on any given weekend and that Mercedes are realistic about that. Unable to spend its way through the upgrade race, Mercedes' answer for the triple-header, as Wolff sets it out, is to cut operational mistakes.