Toto Wolff admitted Mercedes faces a tough reality after the 2026 F1 Dutch GP, claiming the team hasn’t “got the money” to keep up with the development rate of some of its rivals across the second half of the season.
Mercedes claimed another double podium at the Dutch GP, but fell short of catching a resurgent Lando Norris, who took his second consecutive win. McLaren introduced their latest batch of upgrades at Zandvoort, including a new rear wing, while Ferrari has also been gradually bringing upgrades and tweaks to get the most out of their SF-26.
Wolff highlights the cost of F1 development race after 2026 Dutch GP
Speaking after the 2026 Dutch GP, Wolff stated that the team does not have the financial capacity to simply respond to every upgrade introduced by its rivals, pointing to Mercedes’ distribution of the available budget for the season.
“We haven’t got the money to put developments on the car,” he said.
“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 do what we can do. 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.”
Asked why Mercedes had apparently reached the limits of its available development budget while McLaren and Ferrari continue to bring substantial upgrades, Wolff argued rival teams may have adopted different approaches to allocating their budgets across the season.
“Well, you will see how towards the end of the year, whether they are going to, end of the season, they are going to be able to deploy as much stuff onto the car as they do now,” he said.
“Someone might have a different strategy in spending more at the beginning and in the middle of the year than towards the end.”
Mercedes will stick to its development plan
Wolff stated that Mercedes intends to stick to its existing development plan rather than moving anything up the schedule for the sake of responding to what other teams are doing.
The Brackley-based outfit isn’t expected to debut another significant upgrade until the Asian flyaway rounds in October. After the Dutch GP, they currently have an 87-point lead over second-placed Ferrari in the constructors’ standings, while Kimi Antonelli continues to top the leaderboard with 242 points to his name, though McLaren could make it difficult for Mercedes to maximise their points haul at the upcoming rounds if they remain consistently competitive.
“You know, there are many reasons you can look at that. Did we spend too much at the beginning in the initial development? I don’t think so,” Wolff told the media at the 2026 Dutch GP.
“I just think we are an organisation, we have a different, we have a certain size, and infrastructure, and, you know, in that respect, we had a really good car.”
Wolff also pointed out that Mercedes would have entered the later stages of the season in a stronger position had it avoided the reliability problems that hampered both drivers across the first half of the season. The team has suffered three DNFs so far, with George Russell affected by a technical issue in Montreal, while championship leader Antonelli faced major setbacks in Barcelona and Silverstone.
He explained: “We lost… we left between 50 and 100 points on the tables with reliability issues that would have given us a little bit of a gap, a little bit more of a gap than we have today. Other than that, we are just continuing to execute what the plan was and what the financial realities mean for us.”
