Wolff’s comment on Ferrari: “Same rules for everyone… hopefully”

At every race weekend of the 2026 season, one of these buzzwords comes up: the upgrade battle, the development race, a world championship of car development. The 2026 Formula 1 regulations are still in their infancy. At the moment, the teams are falling over themselves to introduce upgrades. And it’s striking: whoever brings new parts usually comes out on top, overtaking the competition. So far, so normal. Now, however, Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff is hinting that one team is bringing a conspicuously large number of new parts – namely Ferrari.

Mercedes? Just ‘minor improvements’

Speaking after the race at the Red Bull Ring, where his driver George Russell took victory, Wolff commented on the changes to his own team: “It was simply a matter of new power units. And that means fewer race kilometres have been covered, which adds a bit of spice. But there was no upgrade included, and none is currently planned either.’ So, a different engine of the same specification from the pool of PUs. ‘As for the chassis, we’re constantly making small improvements here and there.’ Small improvements – unlike the competition, in his view.

Wolff: “We’re always a bit surprised that Ferrari can fit the car with such extensive updates. And in my opinion, they must be running out of money soon – that is, the money from the budget cap. Because we can’t do that. We simply don’t have the leeway within the cost cap to introduce as many parts as they do. Hopefully that will change towards the end of the season, when they can no longer introduce any more parts. At least, that’s what logic would suggest.”

So is Ferrari currently spending everything allocated in its development budget within the prescribed cost cap – which is the same for all teams? That would mean they’re likely to gain an advantage in the first half of the season – but at some point in the second half, they’d run out of money for new parts. In 2026, the cost cap will be the same for all teams at 215 million US dollars. At the current exchange rate, that equates to just over 188.5 million euros.

Wolff: Only Ferrari isn’t letting up

Wolff is baffled by Ferrari’s frequent updates: “The only one that isn’t letting up is Ferrari. I mean, if you compare McLaren, Red Bull and us, you can see that we introduced a major update in Montreal. In between, there were minor parts. I think that applies to Red Bull and McLaren as well. Only Ferrari seems to know no bounds in this respect.”

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Engine raises questions

Added to this is the engine newly developed for Spielberg. Wolff: “And on top of that, they were expecting an ADUO and are already turning up with a new engine. So they must have started development six months ago,” claims Wolff. It was only recently revealed which teams, under the ADUO rule, can implement additional opportunities for upgrades and development (the full meaning of the English acronym). Ferrari is one of them. Shortly afterwards, the Scuderia announced the engine upgrade for Spielberg. The ADUO rule applies only to the engine; the allocation of upgrades is determined by the performance of the combustion engine component of the PU.

Commenting on Ferrari’s numerous upgrades during his media session, with a deliberate pause between clauses, Toto Wolff said: “Same rules for everyone… hopefully.”