2026 Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team

[OverheatedTurbo]

Yeah. Championship is pretty much done. No confidence from the guy and the team’s incompetence on Monaco was on full display.

[Lasssept]

[Tonino]

Masterclass from Kimi. Well done, lad. Absolutely mesmerizing to watch him drive the W17. What a beast of a car that is.

Feel sorry for George at this point. Hopefully things start going his way again.

[PlatinumZealot]

George can still win but Kimi is now looking like he has near unbeatable confidence in this car. Literally only perfection can beat him now.

George is a top driver but I have never seen this sort of consistent level of elite driving from him before.

[OverheatedTurbo]

Merc is getting a 2% from the ADUO. Red Bull has the strongest ICE..

[Lasssept]

[gearboxtrouble]

Its got to be a joke. I can see the RBPT ICE being slightly ahead on peak power but for Mercedes to be 2% behind is science fiction. The only way its true is if Mercedes were forced to nerf the peak performance of the ICE to comply with the revised CR test - something we wouldn't really the the impact of till Barcelona.

[SB15]

LMAO NO WAY

[zibby43]

As we learned today by Kimi lapping nearly the entire field, the Merc chassis is pretty decent, too.

[Gillian]

This is very confusing to me. The consensus was I think that Mercedes had the best ICE and therefore had better harvesting but that then does not seem to be the case? Where's the advantage then?

[zibby43]

This is very confusing to me. The consensus was I think that Mercedes had the best ICE and therefore had better harvesting but that then does not seem to be the case? Where's the advantage then?

The first question you have to ask is “who constituted the consensus.” I remember a few articles early in the season suggesting that RB had developed the most powerful ICE.

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/wher ... stacks-up/

These PUs are complex and Merc may have been the best at optimizing their entire package. I also think some of their straight line performance can be attributed to their excellent aero efficiency, something that was underrated in the early turbo hybrid as well.

[AR3-GP]

This is very confusing to me. The consensus was I think that Mercedes had the best ICE and therefore had better harvesting but that then does not seem to be the case? Where's the advantage then?

The first question you have to ask is “who constituted the consensus.” I remember a few articles early in the season suggesting that RB had developed the most powerful ICE.

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/wher ... stacks-up/

These PUs are complex and Merc may have been the best at optimizing their entire package. I also think some of their straight line performance can be attributed to their excellent aero efficiency, something that was underrated in the early turbo hybrid as well.

There's nothing that supports Mercedes not having the best overall PU. They have simply exploited a blind spot in the ADUO decision process. A PU is not an ICE. It is an ICE and a hybrid. Whether they negotiated to remove the compression ratio thing, or detuned the ICE because the hybrid worked so well, they've done something that allows them to get ADUO even though they are already the best PU.