Author Archives: PressBox

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff said the team could not afford to develop its 2026 car at the same pace as McLaren and Ferrari, arguing that the cost cap left Mercedes unable to match the heavy upgrade packages its rivals have brought in recent months. Wolff said Mercedes had taken a more conservative approach, spread its upgrades across the season and made few significant updates since the Canadian Grand Prix in May, while McLaren and Ferrari continued adding new parts and pulling clear in the development race.

The pressure on Mercedes increased after McLaren’s Lando Norris won the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort for his second straight victory. McLaren and Ferrari both introduced new parts there, after McLaren had made a major upgrade in Hungary and Ferrari had upgraded in Spain in June. Mercedes won the first six races of the season, but Ferrari and McLaren each won two of the next six after their upgrade programs began to pay off.

Wolff said Mercedes had not allocated its $215 million cost cap allowance in a way that let it keep up with rivals. McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said he did not believe Wolff’s financial explanation and said Mercedes would likely start turning wind-tunnel performance into track upgrades. Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur called Wolff’s criticism of Ferrari’s upgrade rate “quite ironic,” saying Ferrari had not brought more parts than Red Bull or other teams. After the Dutch Grand Prix, Mercedes drivers Kimi Antonelli and George Russell said McLaren were faster than Mercedes following the recent updates, as Mercedes tried to respond to its rival’s improved form.

Lando Norris won a rain-hit Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort that was interrupted by a first-lap crash for Max Verstappen and marked the circuit’s final race on the Formula 1 calendar. Norris started from pole, recovered after losing the lead at the restart, and sealed his second straight victory to stay in the championship fight, although he said McLaren still did not have a car strong enough for a full title challenge.

Verstappen’s home race ended in the opening-lap chaos after he lost control in the damp final corner and hit the barriers, bringing out a red flag. Antonelli briefly led after the restart, but Norris retook control on lap 54 and finished 11.536 seconds ahead of the Mercedes driver. George Russell took third after Mercedes ordered him to let Antonelli back through on fresher tires, and the team said the move was the safest way to protect its result with Ferrari closing in behind.

Oscar Piastri finished sixth after a slow pit stop and a drop in pace, Charles Leclerc was fifth, Lewis Hamilton fourth, Liam Lawson seventh and Fernando Alonso ninth, which gave Aston Martin its best result of the season. Norris’s win left Antonelli still leading the championship, with Norris 83 points back.

Lewis Hamilton said Ferrari’s biggest problem at the Dutch Grand Prix was getting its tyres up to temperature, as he and Charles Leclerc both needed two warm-up laps in qualifying and still struggled for grip at Zandvoort. Hamilton qualified fifth, ahead of Leclerc in sixth, but said the SF-26 was still not ready for Turn 1 after an out-lap and a preparation lap. He called the tyre warm-up issue “nuts,” said Ferrari needed more preparation than McLaren and Mercedes, and added that the timing could have been costly if rain had arrived before the end of the session. Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur did not agree with Hamilton’s view of the main qualifying issue, and said the team’s fifth and sixth places were below expectations.

Hamilton said Ferrari made progress with setup changes after a difficult Sprint, when he finished seventh and described the car as feeling like “a completely different car.” He said the changes left him happier with the balance in qualifying, but the tyre performance still prevented him from extracting the most from the car. Leclerc’s weekend also reflected Ferrari’s uneven form, as he was stronger in the Sprint, finishing second after starting on Soft tires, then dropped to sixth in qualifying after Ferrari changed power strategies and engine modes on his car. Ferrari finished Saturday with a third-row lockout, while Hamilton said the team would review the data and believed the race pace and tyre management could still be stronger on Sunday.

That race pace and strategy became an issue on Sunday, when Ferrari delayed team orders as Hamilton grew frustrated on the radio and asked whether he was being used as a guinea pig. He said he thought he had better pace and fresher tyres than Leclerc and believed Ferrari had wasted time by not swapping the cars sooner. Ferrari eventually double-stacked under a virtual safety car, but Hamilton could not pass George Russell late in the race and finished fourth, just ahead of Leclerc. Afterward, Hamilton disagreed with Ferrari’s view that he had simply been unlucky, saying the team had lost time earlier and that cost it a possible podium. Ferrari had saved a fresh set of Soft tyres for the 72-lap race and believed they could help, but Hamilton’s comments underlined how tyre warm-up, qualifying pace and race strategy all combined to leave the team short of its target in Zandvoort.