Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has admitted the championship leaders do not have extra money available to quickly respond to the growing threat from McLaren and Ferrari through car development. After winning the opening six rounds of F1’s new rules era, Mercedes has won just two of the last six races — the same number as Ferrari and McLaren — and has seen its early-season dominance eroded.

“We haven’t got the money to put developments on the car,” Wolff said. “And I said it 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 do what we can. That’s why it is a development race. If you bring an update, each of the top teams will have a couple of tenths in it, at least, and that’s what we lose. The ride has been a bit tougher than at the beginning of the year.”

Stella expects Mercedes to strike back

McLaren have revved the gap with upgrades at each of the last two events, bringing wins in Hungary and Zandvoort, while Mercedes has only brought smaller revisions since its last big upgrade at the Canadian Grand Prix in late May. All teams operate on a yearly budget cap, set at $241 million for 2026 owing to the huge regulation change, and must decide how to allocate spending through the season.

Asked whether Ferrari and McLaren seemed to have the money, Wolff said: “You will see towards the end of the season whether they are going to be able to deploy as much stuff as they do now. Someone might have a different strategy in spending more at the beginning and then in the middle of the year than towards the end.”

When those comments were put to McLaren’s Andrea Stella, he was unconvinced. “I would do like to believe you, but I actually don’t believe it,” said Stella. “I’m sure that Mercedes, having seen that the rivals are kind of elevating the game, they will now cash in on their development that surely is happening in the ground. I’m sure their car in the wind tunnel is quite a bit faster than the car they have on track.”

Antonelli and Russell look ahead to Monza

Mercedes drivers Kimi Antonelli and George Russell finished second and third behind race-winner Norris, whom Russell now considers the benchmark. “Monza may be slightly different,” Russell said, “but I think they are the teams to beat right now.”

The high-speed Fur bearing the Italian Grand Prix will present a different challenge than Zandvoort’s banked, high-degradation layout, and Antonelli is confident the team’s next package will deliver. “The team has been working super hard on this next package that is coming up,” he said, “and they just want to make sure that it’s going to work out well once we put it on.”