Antonelli remains the odds-on favorite to clinch the crown; after all, he is currently a handy 59 points ahead of Russell and Hamilton, and 83 clear of Norris. But history has shown that things can change quickly with a couple of bad races, and Antonelli faces a tough weekend in Monza as he faces grid penalties for taking a new power unit. Not something he likely would have wanted to compromise for his home race, but it had to happen somewhere, and it is likely to be balanced out later on\u2014at least within the intra-team battle\u2014by a similar penalty for Russell.<\/p>\n
![\"F1](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/493445bc-f6b7-4854-adea-bffe829f2846.jpeg\" "\\"F1")
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Mark Thompson\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cWith Kimi, we’re taking the full thing [at Monza],\u201d team principal Toto Wolff noted in Zandvoort last weekend. \u201cIn theory, our calculations say that\u2019s the best track to take it. Obviously, algorithms don’t take the nationality into consideration, but we’re here to fight for a championship and not get the most PR. So yeah, that’s what we’re going to do. With George, the discussions are ongoing, if we were to take it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Max Verstappen\u2019s successful charge in the second half of last season showed that anything is possible in the points race, especially when two teammates are in the title fight taking points off each other. Norris and Lewis Hamilton don\u2019t have priority status within their respective teams, and so could also lose points to their teammates. Nevertheless, if both continue to score well, Mercedes won\u2019t be able to rest.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbsolutely conscious of the threat,\u201d said Wolff. \u201cIt’s not only Norris\u2014if you have a gap of 50 [sic] points to Lewis, that’s something you need to be worried about. So this is going to be tough, and it could become tighter. And yeah, we just need to do the optimum job every single weekend, every single session. I think we as an organization are good enough to win races. And they [McLaren] have got two now, on tracks where they’ve been very, very good in the previous years also. So let’s see if we can regain some momentum.\u201d<\/p>\n
An intriguing aspect to this season has been just how relentless the development race is, with the teams still learning about the new regulations\u2014and thus adding significant performance every time they bring a new aero package. Everything that comes through the system has to earn its place within the constraints of the cost cap, and Wolff has made no secret of his constant surprise at how McLaren and Ferrari have continued to bring new parts almost on a race-by-race basis.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe haven’t got the money to put developments on the car,\u201d he noted last weekend. \u201cAnd 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 optimizing the championship points. But we can just do what we can do. And that’s why it is a development race. If you bring an upgrade, each of the top teams will have a couple of tenths in it at least, and that’s what you lose. So yeah, the ride has been a bit tougher than at the beginning of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou will see how towards the end of the year whether they are going to be able to deploy as much stuff onto the car as they do now,\u201d he added. \u201cSomeone might have a different strategy in spending more at the beginning and in the middle of the year than towards the end.\u201d<\/p>\n
Why Mercedes appears to have less leeway to spend on developments than its immediate rivals is not a straightforward question to answer. Balancing the budget within the cap is a complicated equation; for example, teams have different head counts and wage bills, and different ways of operating.<\/p>\n
![\"F1](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/dd047bcd-fa21-46a5-905e-4a170414953f.jpeg\" "\\"F1")
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NurPhoto\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cThere’s many reasons you can look at,\u201d said Wolff. \u201cDid we spend too much at the beginning in the initial development? I don’t think so. I just think we’re an organization … we have a certain size and infrastructure, and in that respect, we had a really quick car. We left between 50 and 100 points on the table with reliability issues that would have given us a little bit of a gap, a little bit more of a gap than we have today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Have Ferrari and McLaren, as Wolff hinted, shot their respective bolts by using up their development budgets early, or do they have more to come? And has Mercedes not deployed many updates in the last few months because it felt it had enough performance for the summer, and preferred to defer new parts until it could bring a bigger step for the decisive final part of the campaign? Only time will tell. However, Antonelli indicated after Sunday\u2019s race that his team has something on the way\u2014and he can\u2019t wait for it to reach the track.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor sure, we\u2019re clearly not the fastest car anymore on the grid,\u201d the Italian said. \u201cWe\u2019re probably second or third, at least in today\u2019s race. And McLaren has taken a huge step, especially since Hungary, since the big upgrade package they brought. But I\u2019m confident with the team; the team has been working super-hard on this next package that is coming up, and they just want to make sure that it\u2019s going to work out well, once we put it on. It\u2019s going to be more difficult, it\u2019s going to be challenging, but we\u2019re ready to do our best and to maximize every opportunity. And then hopefully it\u2019s going to be our turn to bring the package that\u2019s going to give us a little bit of the upper hand again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s no need for Mercedes to panic just yet, but the Dutch Grand Prix has given the championship…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":872663,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,183855,782,302933,784,578,576,577,237154,1642,302932,273948,82],"class_list":["post-872662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-collection-motorsport","tag-content-type-news","tag-contentid-1d1c841d-0553-4d17-a7b0-3695eac11fad","tag-displaytype-standard-article","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-issyndicated-false","tag-locale-us","tag-shorttitle-wolff-admits-mercedes-f1-losing-development-race","tag-sponsored-false","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=872662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872662\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/872663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=872662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=872662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=872662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}