Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff gave an overwhelmingly positive review of the new regulations and suggested the cars \u201clook like Formula 1 cars again.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is a little over a month before all 11 teams will take their shiny new creations to the first race in Melbourne and at Mercedes\u2019 official launch, Wolff gave his review of the regulation changes that come into effect this season.<\/p>\n
Toto Wolff gives glowing review of F1 2026 rules.<\/p>\n
Given the changes were first announced in 2024, the 2026 season has felt a long time coming with many teams switching focus early given how substantial and wide-ranging the alterations were.<\/p>\n
Pre-season gossip has put Mercedes top of the pecking order and during the team\u2019s official launch on Monday, Wolff was asked for his best and worst parts of the new regulations, although failed to find any of the latter.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t see any worse points,\u201d Wolff, who is the longest serving active team principal, said. \u201cI\u2019m not overselling here or trying to make a product better than it is.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I think the cars are awesome. They look spectacular. They look like Formula 1 cars again. They\u2019re not too small, they\u2019re not too big. They\u2019re not like the whales of the past. The aesthetics are very good.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like the engine concept in terms of the boost. George [Russell] went past [Franco] Colapinto [in the Barcelona shakedown] whilst Colapinto was doing his long runs, I think it was like 60 kilometres straight line speed difference and that is super exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wolff believed all of the elements in the new regulations meant there would be \u201cmuch more overtaking\u201d after the relatively barren years of late.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are going to see much more overtaking,\u201d the 54-year-old said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to see it in areas that we wouldn\u2019t expect it.<\/p>\n
\u201cApart from the fact of the quickest cars, the best drivers, it\u2019s also gonna have this additional dimension of intelligent driving and tactics that are going to be easy to understand, in my opinion, for Formula 1.<\/p>\n
More on Mercedes from PlanetF1.com<\/p>\n
*\u00a0Toto Wolff tells F1 rivals \u2018get your s*** together\u2019 over PU loophole<\/a> \u201cSo, so far, I haven\u2019t really seen any negatives and again, I wouldn\u2019t bulls**t or oversell anything that I don\u2019t believe. For me so far, it\u2019s ticked all the boxes.\u201d<\/p>\n As for who is going to win the title, Wolff said the team with the \u201cmost clever guys\u201d in the car and on the pit wall will be victorious.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the pre-investment in tools and in simulations and doing the correlation work will be beneficial,\u201d he said. \u201cBut in the same way, the learning curve will be steep. Once we see what the others do, we will better understand.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was quite interesting to see on the Ferrari and on the Red Bull the way they were managing energy in Barcelona. It was different to us. It wasn\u2019t better, but it was just different.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I think learning from seeing the others, the challenges in the races where we realise \u2018hold on a minute. We\u2019re on Sunday, we haven\u2019t mapped it in the way you\u2019re winning races.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe we\u2019ve mapped it for a quick lap, and then suddenly you fall back. So the most clever guys in the car and on the engineering side are going to win.\u201d<\/p>\n
*\u00a0George Russell eyes head-to-head title fight with Max Verstappen in 2026<\/a>
*\u00a0Mercedes W17 \u2018worked brilliantly\u2019 as Shovlin casts Barcelona verdict<\/a><\/p>\n