McLaren denies Mercedes claim it cannot afford aggressive upgrades in F1 2026

McLaren Formula 1 team principal Andrea Stella is sceptical about his Mercedes counterpart Toto Wolff's claims that Mercedes doesn't have the available budget to fast-track car upgrades.

In recent weeks Ferrari and especially McLaren have made drastic improvements to their 2026 cars, allowing them to take two wins apiece and put significant pressure on the erstwhile dominant Mercedes team.

Compared to its rivals, Mercedes has only trickled out a minimal quantity of aero upgrades, planning to bring a bigger package to October's Bahrain Grand Prix held in Malaysia.

That delay exposes Mercedes to further damage over the next three September rounds in Italy, Spain and Azerbaijan. But when asked by Autosport after the Dutch Grand Prix if those development decisions are now starting to become increasingly uncomfortable in light of McLaren's rapid progress, Wolff said his team's hands are tied with how Brackley has partitioned its $215m cost cap allowance.

"We haven't got the money to put developments on the car. 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't do what we can't do," the Austrian said.

"You will see towards the end of the season whether they are going to be able to deploy as much stuff onto the car as they do now. Someone might have a different strategy in spending more at the beginning and the middle of the year than towards the end."

When those comments were put to McLaren chief Stella, he replied: "I would like to believe you, but I actually don't believe you."

Andrea Stella cast doubt on Mercedes' claims

Photo by: Steven Tee / LAT Images via Getty Images

Stella was sceptical because the changes to the 2027 power unit regulations, which move F1 towards a 57-43 split between combustion power and electrical energy, but also affect certain areas of the car design, come with an additional $3m cost cap allowance to be used in 2026 or 2027 to help teams prepare for the changes.

If Mercedes really wanted to, Stella said, it could use that allowance to put upgraded car parts into production.

"All teams will have an allowance in their reporting for the cost cap," Stella said. "And if I'm not wrong, it's like three million that you can use in the 2026 reporting for cost cap calculations. And I'm sure that Mercedes, having seen that their rivals are kind of elevating the game, I'm sure they will now cash in on their development that surely is happening in the ground.

"I'm sure the car in the wind tunnel is quite a bit faster than the car they have on track and they will want to now convert some of this potential into upgrades that make it to the real car. So, I'm just pretty sure that they will have upgrades. Obviously, it would be good if not, but I don't even want to think about it..."