Mercedes 2026 Preview: Will the Silver Arrows hit the target?
- Bo Helmus
- 4 minutes ago
- 5 min read
Written by Bo Helmus, Edited by Meghana Sree
As we count down to Formula One's 2026 season opener, our F1 writers preview each team's potential, expectations and goals ahead of the start of a new regulatory era for the sport. Mercedes is desperate to forget about the ground effect era and climb back to the top step of the podium on a regular basis. Have these regulation changes helped the team from Brackley?
2026 will be Mercedes’ 16th year in F1. In eight of them, the team was victorious in the Constructors’ Championship. Based on German engineering, the team always delivered decent cars. But lately, they have been picking up the scraps left by McLaren and Red Bull.
The team has performed steadily, securing podium spots regularly. That ultimately delivered them second place in the Constructors’ standings last year, behind the Papayas. But podiums aren't what the once dominant Mercedes is looking for, they want to win. However, that isn’t going too well, the Silver Arrows having won only seven races in the last four years.
Overheating was a common problem and any solutions that the team tried, like the flexing of the front wing, were deemed illegal by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA).
The entirely new rulebook for 2026 might just be what Mercedes needed. With every team having to build a new car concept from scratch, last year’s issues don’t matter anymore. This is the team’s opportunity to get back to the top after turning a fresh page. With a new power unit, new aerodynamics, but the same drivers, this might be the year that Mercedes turns the championship around.
The driver line-up: Familiar faces
We all remember George Russell pitching why he should be voted the best rookie like it was yesterday, but the truth is: time flies. In reality, this will be the eighth season that the Brit competes in the pinnacle of motorsport. As of date, he has driven 152 races and won five of them.
Russell has been at the team since 2022, driving and learning alongside the great Lewis Hamilton. He visits the podium frequently and is known to pick up any points that the competitors are leaving behind on the asphalt. In 2025, Russell stepped up as the team leader when it became his turn to guide a rookie, and was also the only driver not fighting for the championship in Abu Dhabi to win a race that year.
The 18-year-old Italian driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli graduated to F1 and immediately impressed friends and enemies. In his first ever race, he only finished two seconds off the podium, securing fourth place. Later in the season after a rocky European run, he gained redemption and scored top three positions in Canada, Brazil and Las Vegas.
In the last case, he drove a hugely impressive stint on the hard tyres and gained 14 places. Antonelli was the best performing 2025 rookie, finishing the season in seventh place in the Drivers’ standings. This promising first season gives Mercedes all the reason to trust him to score good points in 2026.
What we learned from testing
The Silver Arrows shot out of the garage quickly at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. Russell set the fastest time for the team, a 1.16:445. This is only a tenth slower than Hamilton, who topped the timing sheets for the shakedown. Antonelli came in fifth place with a 1.17:081. The team completed 502 laps, the most of anyone.
The team held onto this form in Bahrain: in the first week of testing they were P1 and P2. With only 94 laps to his name, the Italian driver set a 1.33:669, which no one was able to beat. His teammate came close, but came two-and-a-half tenths short.
In the second week of testing, Mercedes completed 432 laps, again the most of anyone. Antonelli set the second fastest time, almost a second behind Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. Russell was sixth.
During the final week, however, the W17 showed some reliability issues. Andrew Shovlin, Mercedes’ Trackside Engineering Director, explained that Antonelli “suffered an issue on the power unit side”. This forced the Italian to stop on track and abort his session.
Toto Wolff, Mercedes’ Team Principal, maintained that he is not unhappy with the testing results: “I think first of all it was a relief that we started testing and it actually feels decent. The drivers are quite pleased with the car, and on the stopwatch, we know we aren’t miles off, and that was the case in the last three years.”
The drivers are feeling good as well but remain cautious of issues, as Russell stated: “There definitely have been positives.
“But for every time there is an issue, it does definitely set you back quite a lot. Unfortunately for Kimi [Antonelli] this morning he had an issue on track and he lost a good couple of hours. The first test in Bahrain last week we also had quite a few issues.”
Despite these setbacks, the Brit is feeling confident that the car will perform well in Melbourne: “The car is feeling good. The new power units are feeling fast and we’re making improvements every single day. However, we need to keep on improving the reliability.”
Antonelli agreed with Russell: “It hasn’t been the smoothest of testing for me here in Bahrain. But that is what testing is for. It’s really important to experience these issues and fix it now to then be fine for the rest of the season. The team has been looking into it and already found the issue and the way to fix it, so hopefully we’ll be fine for Australia.”
Team expectations for 2026
The last time the regulations changed this impactfully, when F1 changed from the V8 engines to the turbo-hybrid era, Mercedes took that opportunity and won eight Constructors’ Championships in a row. That might be a bit much too ask this time around, but the Silver Arrows have proven to be capable (re-)designers.
Their new challenger, the W17, was only a few tenths off the pace set by their competitors during pre-season testing but remain the early favourites. With closer racing due to the new aerodynamics, who knows what might happen. Wolff thinks his team will be fighting for podiums and wins: “I would say there’s four teams at the moment, pretty much the usual suspects, and I think we are part of the group that can compete at the front.”
Mercedes has built a quick car, and with its history of designing mighty power units, everything is possible in the new era of F1 racing. The question remains: Will the Silver Arrows hit the target? Only time will tell.
