Mercedes Formula 1 team principal Toto Wolff says he’d rather have a fast, unreliable car than the opposite, but admits it’s time to weed out the Silver Arrow’s mechanical gremlins.
Mercedes has dominated the 2026 season so far, taking all nine pole positions for grand prix races – though it was beaten by McLaren and Ferrari in a couple of sprint qualifying sessions – but has won just seven of those grands prix.
Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton prevailed on merit at Barcelona, where an electrical issue took Kimi Antonelli out of the race from second place, three weeks on from a Canadian Grand Prix where a similar problem caused George Russell’s retirement from the lead.
Then, last time out at the British GP, Antonelli’s wheel shield broke, which prevented him from mounting an otherwise credible challenge to dominant leader Charles Leclerc.
Asked if those reliability issues came from pushing things to the limit and whether Mercedes should ‘bring it back a little bit’, Wolff replied: “I think we are such a performance organisation. On the chassis and engine side, we want to squeeze everything out.
“I'd rather dial back a little bit something that is really good, and fix some of the reliability gremlins, than run behind performance.
“So far, we've won six races out of eight? I lost track. And I'd rather have this than slow and reliable.”
When it was pointed out the count was seven victories from nine rounds, Wolff added: “Should have been nine from nine.”
Despite those troubles, Mercedes still has covered more ground than any other team but Ferrari in grand prix races this season, with 5,215km out of a possible 5,408km.
At the bottom of the order lies Aston Martin, which has completed 3,753km after taking just eight official race finishes from a possible 18 – although that has translated to seven out of 12 since the April break, which goes to show some much-needed early progress with the team’s troublesome Honda powertrain.
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