Toto Wolff pins Monza and Madrid being an important period for Mercedes, considering how F1 rivals have closed up on them in the recent races.<\/p>\n
After Ferrari picked up wins early in the F1 2026 season and now McLaren has secured back-to-back wins, Mercedes<\/a> certainly is feeling the heat. The development battle has left the German outfit behind and they have nothing at hand to show for in the immediate.<\/p>\n There are speculations about an upgrade in Malaysia for Mercedes<\/a>, but for the time being, they have to do with minor steps. They still have handy lead in both constructors\u2019 and drivers\u2019 championships, but team boss Wolff has noted that anything around 50 points is nothing safe.<\/p>\n Mercedes is hopeful that some of their drop was down to nature of the circuit and this is why Wolff has pinned hope on the races in Monza and Madrid. With the gap shortening, the Austrian feels any mistake, whether it is from driver\u2019s end or reliability, has to be curbed.<\/p>\n Monza and Madrid important<\/p>\n \u201cMonza and Madrid begin an important period for us,\u201d Wolff laid it out, ahead if F1 Italian GP weekend at Monza. \u201cThe field has compressed to the point where several teams can win on merit, and the price of a mistake is much higher. We have put ourselves in a strong position in both championships, but nobody in our team is under any illusion about how difficult the next races will be.\u201d<\/p>\n It will be a task from the onset for Mercedes in Monza, considering the grid penalty for Andrea Kimi Antonelli<\/a> due to change of power unit<\/a>. The reliability problems earlier in the season has affected its programme, with George Russell also expected to take one \u2013 potentially in Baku.<\/p>\n Penalty adds to challenge<\/p>\n \u201cFor us, Monza begins with a challenge,\u201d continued Wolff. \u201cKimi will take a power unit penalty and start from the back of the grid. It\u2019s disappointing for him and for the fans who want to see him fighting from the front in his home race, but our sport doesn\u2019t reward sentiment.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you make decisions that benefit the championship campaign, sometimes you pay a short-term price. The objective now is straightforward: recover as many places as possible and maximise the points. On the other side of the garage, George arrives with good momentum after Zandvoort and will be looking to put himself firmly in the fight from the start of the weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n Energy starved circuit<\/p>\n With long straights and not many corners at Monza, it will be an added task for not just Mercedes but everyone to recharge their battery. It is another challenge thrown at them. \u201cMonza is an energy-poor track,\u201d noted Wolff.<\/p>\n \u201cYou spend much of the lap asking everything from the power unit and don\u2019t have many opportunities to charge the battery. With the current regulations, that creates compromises that will need to be managed carefully. It is an interesting challenge and one that will likely lead to an exciting weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Toto Wolff pins Monza and Madrid being an important period for Mercedes, considering how F1 rivals have closed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":881202,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,66014,81721,82,4503],"class_list":["post-881201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-italian-grand-prix","tag-mercedes-f1","tag-sports","tag-toto-wolff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881201","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=881201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881201\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/881202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=881201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=881201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=881201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}