Mercedes’ commanding technical advantage from the beginning of the 2026 Formula 1 season has disappeared, but Kimi Antonelli continues to make the difference in the championship. McLaren and Ferrari have accelerated their development programmes and, over the last six Grands Prix, each of the three teams has won twice. Yet Antonelli left Zandvoort with an even stronger position at the top of the standings, extending his advantage over both George Russell and Lewis Hamilton to 59 points.
The picture is very different from Melbourne on the opening Sunday of the season. After the first Grand Prix of 2026, the widespread impression was that Mercedes was about to dominate the championship. The debate seemed to centre not on whether a Mercedes driver would become world champion, but whether George Russell or Kimi Antonelli would take the crown. The first assumption to collapse concerned Russell; now, following the summer break, Mercedes itself can no longer be regarded as Formula 1’s unquestioned performance benchmark.
Mercedes’ 2026 technical advantage has disappeared
Antonelli remains firmly in his comfort zone thanks to an extraordinary run of form and, just as importantly, the points advantage he accumulated during Mercedes’ dominant opening phase. The wider performance trend, however, tells a more complicated story.
Across the last six Grands Prix, Mercedes has won only twice – exactly the same number as Ferrari and a resurgent McLaren. Ferrari took victories with Lewis Hamilton in Barcelona and Charles Leclerc at Silverstone, Mercedes responded through George Russell in Austria and Kimi Antonelli at Spa, while Lando Norris has now delivered consecutive wins for McLaren in Hungary and the Netherlands.
The scale of the rivals’ development work has been much greater than what Mercedes has brought to the track, and the results increasingly suggest that the initial performance gap has been closed. Antonelli had already acknowledged before the summer break that Mercedes had fallen behind in the W17 development race, while a larger package remains part of the team’s plans.
Zandvoort provided an even clearer warning. Over the full Grand Prix distance, McLaren’s pace – and Ferrari’s as well – was stronger than that of the two Mercedes W17s.
“We don’t have the money we need to bring developments to the car,” Toto Wolff admitted. “I’ve already said that we’re trying to distribute our resources evenly over the course of the season, based on our calculations regarding when we can introduce the most important upgrades and trying to optimise the points in the championship.”
“But we simply cannot do what we cannot afford. That’s why people talk about a development race. When you bring an upgrade, each of the top teams can find at least a couple of tenths, and that’s what you lose when you don’t. So yes, for us the situation has become a little more difficult compared with the start of the year.”
Kimi Antonelli maximises Mercedes result at Zandvoort
Against that backdrop, Mercedes can be extremely satisfied with what it achieved at the Dutch Grand Prix. The team did not win, but second and third represented the maximum available result given the performance of the cars around it.
Antonelli had the greatest reason to smile. His second-place finish increased his championship advantage, leaving George Russell and Lewis Hamilton tied 59 points behind him in the 2026 Formula 1 driver standings.
The Italian maximised almost every opportunity available to him. Two excellent starts – the original launch and the restart following the early red flag – allowed Antonelli to move into the lead. On the medium tyres, he even began to believe that victory in the Dutch Grand Prix might be possible.
Once the race moved onto the hard compound, however, the balance of power changed dramatically. Norris’ McLaren became too quick to contain, while Antonelli struggled to reproduce the pace he had shown earlier.
The deficit grew enough to create suspicion that something on Antonelli’s Mercedes was no longer working as expected. The negative change in performance remained evident even when he switched to soft tyres for the final stint.
Mercedes team orders put Antonelli back ahead of Russell
The closing stages also produced a significant moment between the two Mercedes drivers. Thanks to his soft tyres, Antonelli quickly reduced the gap to George Russell, who remained on older hard rubber.
With the two Ferraris closing behind, Mercedes instructed Russell to allow Antonelli through rather than lose time while the team-mates fought each other. Russell complied, restoring the order that had existed before Antonelli’s pit stop, although team orders always carry the possibility of creating tension between drivers fighting near the front of the championship.
Russell later accepted that the call had been the right one, while Wolff dismissed suggestions that the episode could create problems inside Mercedes.
“No, I don’t think there will be any problems,” Toto Wolff explained. “Obviously team orders are always difficult to accept, but it’s something we always discuss.”
“A situation developed that we had agreed on during the strategy meeting in the morning: we must not lose time fighting each other. When you have rivals right behind you, as we saw with the Ferraris at the beginning of the year in Shanghai, you risk losing a huge amount of time in the race and, consequently, more points. That’s why we try to be proactive and avoid losing points.”
“Today it wasn’t a particularly difficult decision, because Kimi was second, clearly ahead of George, and essentially after the pit stop we simply restored the previous order. So it was completely normal, no problem at all, and we would have done exactly the same thing if the positions had been reversed. That’s all.”
The result also has important implications for Russell’s championship hopes. Mercedes entered the second half of the season needing its two drivers to maximise points as the field tightened, making the growing gap between George Russell and Kimi Antonelli increasingly significant.
W17 urgently needs its next major upgrade
Team orders are far from Mercedes’ biggest concern. The W17 needs a significant update, and sooner rather than later, otherwise race victories could become increasingly difficult to achieve as McLaren and Ferrari continue to improve.
The projections Mercedes made after the opening part of the season had anticipated an even stronger championship position than the one it currently holds.
“There are many ways to analyse the situation,” Wolff said. “Did we spend too much at the beginning and on the initial development? I don’t think so. I simply think we are an organisation with certain dimensions and a certain infrastructure.”
“And in that respect, we had a really fast car. We left somewhere between 50 and 100 points on the table because of reliability problems, and those points would have allowed us to have some margin, a slightly bigger advantage than the one we have today.”
“Apart from that, we’re simply continuing to follow the plan we established and what our financial resources allow us to do.”
Mercedes will therefore have to maximise the package currently at its disposal while waiting for further development. Antonelli has already described the title fight as requiring more than pure speed, with the pressure surrounding the championship becoming a new test for the 19-year-old Mercedes driver.
Antonelli faces Monza grid penalty as title fight tightens
The next challenge is already confirmed. Antonelli will take a grid penalty at Monza because Mercedes plans to introduce a new power unit beyond his permitted season allocation. The penalty will be at least 10 places and could become larger depending on how many components are replaced.
That means the championship leader is heading into the Italian Grand Prix at Monza expecting a defensive weekend rather than another straightforward opportunity to fight from the front.
“We are absolutely aware of the threat coming from our rivals,” Wolff concluded. “And it’s not just Norris. Even when you have a 50-point advantage, it’s something you have to worry about.”
“It’s going to be tough and the situation could become even tighter. We simply have to do the best job possible in every single session and every single weekend. I think that, as an organisation, we are strong enough to win races.”
Mercedes’ potential has certainly not disappeared, but its technical advantage has. McLaren’s recent development step and Ferrari’s improved competitiveness mean that the final part of the season increasingly looks like a fight in which every point will matter and mistakes will be costly.
In that increasingly competitive landscape, Mercedes’ most valuable asset may no longer be the W17 itself. It is becoming Kimi Antonelli – the driver who continues to extract results even as the machinery beneath him loses the clear advantage it enjoyed at the beginning of 2026.
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