Formula 1’s regulations paradigm shift has stirred a sleeping giant from its slumber. The Silver Arrows, once invincible in racking up an unprecedented 15 out of 16 drivers’ and constructors’ titles from 2014-21 before the complexities of the ground-effect era confounded it, was on ominous form in pre-season testing. The competitive picture is too ill-defined to know whether Mercedes really has grasped the opportunity to haul itself back to top billing, but a combination of metronomic running in the Barcelona test and rumbling from rival camps suggest it’s in the game. Trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin’s statement that “I don’t think we could have hoped for a better three days of testing” exudes quiet assurance.

George Russell was immediately installed as title favourite, but the strength of the Red Bull package that started the subsequent Bahrain test strongly makes team principal Toto Wolff cautious. He warns that “we haven’t yet proven that we have a package that is good enough”. That reflects not only the reality that the first test doesn’t count for much, but also the chastening effect of the tough years that taught him to ease pressure through expectation management. Yet despite that, he doesn’t downplay the satisfaction taken from early testing performances.

“We feel enthused by going into this new environment,” says Wolff. “It’s obvious you wake up with more of a smile if your car is quick and the early indications that we had were positive that at least it doesn’t look like a turd and we’re midfield. It looks like we have something that we can build upon. Generally, we are happy but with the scepticism of knowing that we haven’t got reliable data of the other usual suspects.”

Drivers are always tight-lipped about how good a car is in testing, but in retrospect admit they recognise a poor machine almost immediately. Russell echoes Wolff’s sentiments by at least ruling out the possibility that the Mercedes W17 will be a bad car.

“You know when it could be a really bad car and you can highlight those negatives early on,” says Russell. “We don’t believe it is, but is it a car that can produce a world championship?”

That’s the key question, one that doubters will scoff at. They will justifiably cite the struggles of the past four years as evidence this isn’t the team it once was. Mercedes swung between overconfidence and befuddlement during what team principal Toto Wolff called its years of “false dawns and lots of theories”. The results from 2022-2025 were respectable, with five grand prix victories and two years as runner-up in the constructors’ championship, but by the sky-high standards of Mercedes they were a failure. Forever a step behind during those years, first running ultra-low ride height but plagued by terrible porpoising and mechanical bouncing troubles, then running a little too high on ride height as

“We haven’t yet proven that we have a package that is good enough”

others found performance pushing lower, later playing catch-up on flexi-wings and struggling in warmer temperatures, Mercedes never became the benchmark. Even the excuse that it couldn’t catch up after the terrible start with the infamous zero-sidepods car of 2022 doesn’t hold water given customer team McLaren emerged as a title-winner having initially been far behind.

The elimination of the venturi tunnels and the return to a largely flat step-plane floor take F1 back to the future, creating regulations closer to those under which Mercedes thrived. The underfloor still works in ground effect, but far less powerfully so than before. To add to that, the change to a notional 50/50 split of conventional V6 and electrical power deployed by the MGU-k means brand-new power units.

Even before testing began, expectations were high for Mercedes. But pointing to ostensible similarities in the cars to those before 2022 and the fact it had by some margin the best power unit when the last generation of hybrid engine was introduced in 2014 was never a compelling argument. The goalposts have moved too far, on the chassis side by the simplification of aerodynamic geometries and in power unit development by the fact these are all-new designs with the MGU-h eliminated and a design process more about refining existing technologies than developing new ones. The quality of the opposition is higher too, with rivals avoiding the mistakes of 2014 by ensuring development work on both counts started early.

“Even before testing, expectations were high for Mercedes”

So why the optimism? Firstly, before the power units ran on track for the first time, there were rumours about Mercedes being ahead of the rest. There was potentially a kernel of truth in this given several mechanisms for spreading such information – personnel moving jobs, the usual gossip that spreads like wildfire in the F1 paddock and the regular reporting of progress by all power unit manufacturers to the FIA. That buzz counts for something, but is vague, imprecise and often contradictory. However, it’s also supported by the success of the Barcelona test, which Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains boss Hywel Thomas characterises as “we weren’t running, but we managed to walk” when it comes to its impressive reliability but unexplored performance.

Secondly, it’s now well-known that Mercedes has, along with Red Bull, hit upon a design trick that allows the V6 engine to run at a higher compression ratio than intended by the regulations. The regulations do not allow a geometric compression ratio higher than 16:1, but crucially this is measured “at ambient temperature”. Both Mercedes and Red Bull Powertrains have hit on a way to exceed that and get closer to the 18:1 of the old rules when the engine is at operating temperature. That should mean a power and efficiency gain.

This has proved controversial, and discussions are ongoing between the manufacturers and the FIA about ways to create a means to test this at temperature. However, provided the design is within the letter of the law, and apparently it is, there’s every chance this won’t be fully curbed until 2027. There’s still the potential for a formal protest in Australia, but most likely Mercedes has a baked-in advantage for the year ahead. Wolff has railed against rival teams lobbying against the design, insisting, “it’s legal and it’s what the regulations say, but if someone wants to entertain themselves by distraction then everybody’s free to do this”.

Thirdly, Mercedes is a works team and that confers advantages when it comes to the understanding and integration of the power unit with the car. Although that hasn’t been enough for it to be ahead of McLaren in recent times, the benefits are magnified at the start of a new rules cycle. It also has three customer teams, which means mileage and data – and therefore understanding – will accumulate rapidly. And finally, while Mercedes HPP lost swathes of personnel to Red Bull’s in-house operation, it remains a formidable facility that has everything it needs to produce a market-leading engine.

Ranged against that, there’s the threat posed by Mercedes-engined McLaren and the fact that the spread of power unit performance is set to be narrower than it was in 2014. The key differentiators will be the overall power of the engine, the performance of the V6, the efficiency (and cooling characteristics) of the battery and integration of the systems to maximise energy management. Mercedes has also had to design and develop this power unit under a cost cap, set at a baseline of $95m for each of 2023, ’24 and ’25, which rises to $130m this year, preventing it from stealing a march with brute-force spending.

The same can be said on the chassis side. When Mercedes was in its pomp, it was one of a small cadre of teams that had a high ceiling on spending. That’s now changed thanks to a combination of the more equitable split of ‘prize money’ across the teams, F1’s explosive growth and the imposition of a cost cap in ’21 covering the design, development and operation of the cars. Mercedes has yet to prove it can lead the way on a playing field that’s not tilted in favour of it financially.

The chassis is expected to play second fiddle to the power unit as far as a differentiator is concerned, at least before these new packages mature. That doesn’t mean it’s irrelevant, though. Mercedes has probably expended as much, if not more, effort than its leading rivals in attempting to troubleshoot the tools and processes used to design the car as it worked through its problems in the ground-effect era. While these 2026 machines are new, requiring the redesign of countless parts, the science and knowledge driving the process is the same that yielded the previous generation of Mercedes cars. That confers the potential advantage of forcing rigorous introspection and the learning of lessons that other teams may not have bumped up against, which is a pleasing thought for Mercedes.

However, it would be absurd to argue that past failure inevitably leads to future success and the question of whether Mercedes has learned its lessons remains to be answered. That hit home in the 2025 season finale where Mercedes was surprised by the poor slow-corner rotation in the race that, according to Wolff, “shows that these cars are still not very clear to us”. What’s certainly the case is that this is a team happy to see the back of the old regulations, which technical director James Allison was a stern critic of, given his dislike of the necessity for low-slung, ultra-stiff designs. Perhaps the most encouraging comment was made by Russell, who was in the unfamiliar position of hitting the track in a car that was working exactly as the Mercedes simulation tools predicted for the first time since 2021.

“We left Barcelona with [a] positive feeling because the car reacted as we anticipated,” says Russell. “The numbers we’re seeing from the aero on the car match what we see back on the simulator. How the car is handling is matching how it feels on

“The numbers we’re seeing on the car match what we see on the simulator”

the simulator. This is something we’ve not experienced since 2021, as a team.”

While question marks hang over its technical capabilities, Russell is arguably the most dependable component of the Mercedes package. He’s ready to fight for the world championship, and he knows it. He cites Max Verstappen as the driver he wants to measure himself against and, in doing so, tacitly reveals he believes he has the rest covered. He’s laid down markers in battle with Verstappen, on and off track, and heads into 2026 off the back of his best season. He was arguably the most consistent driver of ’25, certainly the one who made the least significant errors. He has also stamped his authority on the team following the departure of Lewis Hamilton, showing repeatedly he’s not afraid to be a loud and, when necessary, critical voice within the team. He also hints that in the first half of the ground-effect era in particular, when Allison was in an overarching chief technical officer role before returning to the trenches as a more day-to-day performance-focused technical director, that the team oversimplified its challenges.

“I’m a rational and objective person and this is a sport where emotions get high,” says Russell. “And that’s absolutely fine, but when you’re in the engineer’s office or design office talking about updates and the direction we need to take, it’s important to have a clear head, to not overreact and to try and put a bit more of an objective reason why a certain weekend may have been a failure or may not have been a failure because there is never one reason that makes a weekend great or bad. But there are always theories flying around. We’re pointing at a certain aspect, saying that is the reason why we have failed, and if you action a plan based on that theory, it can take you in the wrong direction. Also with James Allison returning, as a team we are a bit more level-headed.”

Russell still has to prove he can cut it in a title fight. Even he must know that he might come up short against Verstappen. But while he’s cut back on the errors that blighted some of his time at Mercedes, albeit ones that arose partly through a conscious decision to push the limits, there’s no doubt he can at least be a regular race winner.

“Even Russell must know that he might come up short against Max”

Alongside him, Kimi Antonelli is the Mercedes wildcard. Promoted to F1 after just one season as its answer to Max Verstappen, in the sense of a young driver with prodigious potential thrown in at the deep end, he failed to deliver on sky-high expectations. On a near-vertical learning curve, Antonelli’s rookie season was a curate’s egg. He rarely showed the eye-watering pace Mercedes is confident he’s capable of, with an adjusted average almost a quarter-of-a-second off Russell. That’s not to say he was slow, and he even outperformed his team-mate emphatically late in the year at Interlagos before holding off the charging Verstappen to take second, but he impressed more in other areas.

Probably his standout quality was his ability to absorb lessons. “When he learns things, they become embedded,” said Shovlin at the end of the year. “He’s not making the same mistakes time and time again.” By a curious quirk, he flipped the script by producing his season-defining displays at circuits he was less familiar with rather than on familiar ground in Europe. So extreme was this trend that all 11 of his 12 top-six finishes in grands prix came outside of Europe, the only exception being his fourth place on the streets of Baku.