Wolff: "Super difficult" to predict how Mercedes' rivals are preparing for F1 2026

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has admitted it is “super difficult” to gauge where his rivals are in their preparation for Formula 1’s overhaul in 2026, while the feeling in the team was “not comparable” to preparations for 2014 when its period of dominance began.  

The Brackley-based squad has gone through two major rule changes in its current form. It aced the reset in 2014, winning eight consecutive constructors’ titles, but was lost in the weeds when the rules changed again in 2022.  

Now, it is on the cusp of a third shake-up as the championship braces for its new era in 2026. Next year, F1 will be defined by new rules that bring active aerodynamics to the front and rear wings, chassis will get smaller and power units will rely on a 50:50 split in internal combustion power and electrical energy.  

As the current ruleset came to an end at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, the Mercedes boss warned that comparing preparations for 2026 and 2014 was not possible.  

“Landing in 2014, I kind of had [a good] feeling already in the winter when we were the first ones running a full car dyno,” Wolff said. “The engine was more reliable than it seemed with the other people. And obviously, day one testing, nobody did some laps, we did. The same on day two.

“So, it's not comparable I would say. It's also that the grid is just much more competitive than it was in previous years.”  

Mercedes was “more cheerful than today” at the close of the 2013 season

Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images

While Wolff admitted that Mercedes was “more cheerful than today” when the 2013 season ended in Brazil – as it clinched second place in the F1 standings just six points ahead of Ferrari – he said his team was “on track” with its preparations for the new season.

“It's super difficult to predict, because we set ourselves targets that we are on track to meet,” Wolff explained. “But whether those targets were set ambitious enough and whether those targets have been set in the right place in terms of priorities, only the future will show.”  

That future is approaching rapidly, as F1 will host a behind closed doors test in Barcelona from 26-30 January. And while Mercedes hasn’t announced when it will launch its 2026 challenger, Red Bull will be the first manufacturer to break cover with an event on 15 January.  

“This is not far away, eight weeks or so,” he said after the final race of 2025. “It's actually awful to say. Today was the first day in the morning when I thought, ‘I don't want to go to a race track’.”

Now, he says the team will do “everything in our power to come out with a car, with a power unit that is competitive enough”.  

However, he wouldn’t be drawn on predicting the team’s position come lights out in Australia, and warned that he was a “glass half-empty person” when it came to predicting his team’s fortunes – especially after it started the 2022 rules cycle on the back foot after an era of dominance in F1.