Toto Wolff has played down suggestions that Mercedes could be heading towards another era of Formula 1 dominance despite winning eight of the opening 11 Grands Prix of the 2026 season. The Mercedes team principal believes Ferrari is now close enough to punish even small mistakes, while the latest FIA power-unit assessment has produced the surprising conclusion that Red Bull Powertrains currently has the strongest internal combustion engine.
Mercedes had been widely considered the team to beat even before the 2026 season began, largely because of expectations surrounding its new power unit. The opening half of the championship has broadly supported those predictions, but the competitive picture has tightened considerably as Ferrari and McLaren have improved.
Toto Wolff rules out another era of Mercedes F1 dominance
Mercedes has collected eight victories from the first 11 races, yet its recent record paints a less overwhelming picture. Across the last five Grands Prix, the Silver Arrows have won only twice, with Ferrari and McLaren interrupting their earlier control of the season.
McLaren’s progress was particularly evident in Hungary, where the scale of the team’s latest MCL40 developments caught Mercedes by surprise. Ferrari has also continued to close the performance gap while pursuing a race-by-race development strategy for the SF-26.
Mercedes has also been hindered by reliability problems, making the current situation very different from the beginning of the previous turbo-hybrid era.
Speaking to RacingNews365, Toto Wolff explained why he does not expect Mercedes to reproduce the overwhelming superiority it enjoyed after Formula 1 introduced its previous generation of hybrid power units in 2014.
“What made us so dominant at the beginning of the hybrid era in 2014 was the fact that, for a long time, our power unit was clearly superior,” Toto Wolff said. “Today you can see that Ferrari is very close to us. If we make a mistake with the set-up or introduce an upgrade that doesn’t work, while they bring an effective update, you can quickly find yourself chasing.”
Ferrari is now close enough to punish Mercedes mistakes
The crucial difference is therefore the margin separating Formula 1’s leading teams. Mercedes may still have the strongest overall package, but Toto Wolff believes that advantage is nowhere near large enough to compensate automatically for poor execution or an unsuccessful development step.
That has become increasingly important as Ferrari continues to work on its own power unit. The Maranello team is carrying out extensive reliability work ahead of a planned engine development for Monza, adding another variable to the second-half performance battle.
At the same time, Mercedes must balance outright performance with reliability after technical problems cost the team points during the first half of the championship. The combination means there is little room for complacency despite Mercedes’ strong position.
FIA’s ADUO system creates an unusual Mercedes-Red Bull situation
Another defining feature of the 2026 regulatory era is the Additional Development and Upgrade Opportunities system, known as ADUO. The mechanism was designed to give manufacturers whose internal combustion engines fall behind the benchmark additional opportunities to close the performance gap.
The surprising element is the FIA’s first assessment. Because the evaluation focuses on the internal combustion engine rather than the complete hybrid power unit, Red Bull Powertrains emerged as the benchmark.
That creates an unusual situation in which Mercedes, despite its apparent advantage when the complete power-unit package is considered, can still benefit from additional development opportunities under the system.
Toto Wolff, however, played down the importance of the apparent contradiction.
“The FIA says that, as far as the internal combustion engine is concerned, Red Bull is the best,” the Austrian explained. “Perhaps, when you consider the overall package, we are the ones with the best power unit.”
Wolff insists Ferrari’s power unit is fully competitive
Toto Wolff also rejected the idea that Ferrari is operating with a significant power disadvantage, arguing that the characteristics of the SF-26 must be considered when judging the performance of its engine.
“Ferrari continues to complain that it doesn’t have the most powerful engine, but I think it has an absolutely competitive power unit, fitted to a car designed to produce a lot of downforce, with winglets covering half of the exhaust,” Toto Wolff said.
“I think that, in reality, we are all very close and the fight is balanced.”
That assessment underlines how different the 2026 championship is from Mercedes’ breakthrough season in 2014. The team may have started the new regulatory era from the strongest position, but Ferrari and McLaren have already shown that the gap can be overturned on individual weekends.
With further power-unit and chassis developments expected throughout the second half of the season, Mercedes’ eight victories from 11 races should not necessarily be interpreted as the beginning of another prolonged period of dominance. In Toto Wolff’s view, the margins are simply too small for that.
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