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The German marque started 2026 as Formula 1’s dominant force, winning each of the opening six grands prix and taking pole position at the first 10 races of the season. That advantage has since been steadily eroded, with Mercedes winning only two of the next six grands prix while Ferrari and McLaren have also taken two victories apiece. McLaren has made particularly rapid progress through recent upgrade packages, with Lando Norris following his victory in Hungary with another win at the Dutch Grand Prix. Ferrari has also continued to develop its car, while Mercedes has taken a more conservative approach and has not introduced a major package since the Canadian Grand Prix. Wolff claimed that was not a matter of Mercedes choosing to hold back developments that could immediately restore its earlier advantage, but instead the result of how it has allocated spending under Formula 1’s $215 million (A$300.5 million) cost cap. “We haven’t got the money to put developments on the car,” he said. “I said 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 optimising the championship points. “But we just can’t do what we can’t do. “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.” The contrast between Mercedes and its rivals has become increasingly apparent in the number of new components introduced during the season. Ferrari has declared 40 new parts through the opening 12 rounds, compared with 38 apiece for McLaren and Red Bull and just 24 for Mercedes. Those figures do not provide a direct comparison of development expenditure given the considerable difference in cost between individual components, but Mercedes also trails its leading rivals when the scale of each upgrade is weighted. Wolff suggested the difference could ultimately come down to when each team has chosen to spend its available budget, with Mercedes attempting to preserve enough capacity to continue developing later into the season. “Well, you will see towards the end of the season whether they are going to be able to deploy as much stuff onto the car as they do now,” he said. “Someone might have a different strategy in spending more at the beginning and the middle of the year than towards the end.” Mercedes is not expected to introduce its next significant W17 development for another four races, leaving it exposed to further gains from its rivals in the meantime. Its early-season advantage could also have been considerably larger had reliability not repeatedly intervened, with power unit problems affecting both championship leader Kimi Antonelli and George Russell. Wolff estimated those failures had cost Mercedes between 50 and 100 points and rejected the suggestion that the team had simply exhausted too much of its development budget before the season began. “Did we spend too much at the beginning and the initial development? I don’t think so,” he said. “I just think we are an organisation with a certain size and infrastructure. “In that respect we had a really quick car. We left between 50 and 100 points on the table due to reliability issues. That would have given us a little bit more of a gap than we have today. “And other than that, we are just continuing to execute what the plan was and what the financial realities mean for us.” Antonelli continues to lead the drivers’ championship despite Norris beating him to victory at Zandvoort, holding a 59-point advantage over Russell and Lewis Hamilton and sitting 83 clear of Norris.