The F1 Season Is Already Looking Like One Long Race to Catch Mercedes
By taking the top two spots on the podium on Sunday, the German team made it clear that it had already mastered the sport’s sweeping new regulations
- Mercedes secured the top two spots in the first 2026 Formula One Grand Prix in Melbourne, signaling early dominance under new rules.
- Whispers circulated that Mercedes found an engine compression ratio “hack,” prompting officials to measure hot engines from June 1.
- Aston Martin drivers Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso could not complete the Melbourne race due to severe car vibrations.
Every few years, Formula One does something that no other sport would ever dream of. Simply for the sake of mixing up the challenge and shuffling the pack, F1 rewrites its entire rulebook.
The technical regulations that govern car design in one era are tossed out and replaced by a fresh set of regulations—and a brand new engineering challenge. But after a single race under the 2026 rules, it’s clear that one team has already cracked them.
On Sunday in Melbourne, Australia, Mercedes took the top two spots on the podium, as Great Britain’s George Russell claimed the first Grand Prix of the season and laid down a marker to the rest of the sport. His teammate Kimi Antonelli was second, ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. Now, barely one weekend into the 24-race calendar, F1 has an early sense of how this season might go. There is Mercedes, and then there is the rest.
“It’s a perfect way to start the season,” Russell said. “But it is still very early days in the championship, and we know our rivals will be trying to close the gap quickly.”
Mercedes had already conquered what came to be known as F1’s “hybrid era,” which saw it win eight consecutive constructors’ world championships from 2014 to 2021. That gave way to shorter spells of dominance for Red Bull and McLaren. But there is no question now, after the most sweeping rule changes in the sport’s history, that Mercedes is back.
Whispers had circulated for a year in F1 circles that the team had stolen a march on the rest of the field. Even while McLaren ran riot through 2025 by taking 14 of the 24 Grands Prix, Mercedes had punted on the season to refine a 2026 car that would blow its rivals away. In a sport defined by which designers adopt the most aggressive and creative approach to the rules, it seemed that the engineers behind the Silver Arrows had unearthed all the right loopholes.
One theory on the F1 paddock was that Mercedes had discovered a hack with regard to engine compression ratios, a technical spec that ultimately affects engine horsepower. Rival teams believed that Mercedes had worked out a way to comply with the regulations when the engine was inspected cold, but exceeded them in race conditions, once the engine was hot.
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff had said that the controversy “looks like a storm in a teacup.” Still, it grew loud enough for officials to announce last month that they would begin taking measurements when the engine was hot beginning June 1.
Until then, however, chances are that Mercedes will keep padding its cushion atop the standings. This is often the way when one team solves the new regulations before the rest. The classic example remains the 2009 season, when Brawn GP exploited an aerodynamic loophole with an innovation known as a “double diffuser.” The impact was so dramatic that Brawn driver Jenson Button won six of the first seven races as the rest of the sport scrambled to catch up. Only by then, it was too late. Button won the drivers’ title—and the Brawn team eventually morphed into modern Mercedes.
So this time around, the rest of F1 knows enough to be worried.
“If they have a few months of that, then the season’s done,” said Lewis Hamilton, who finished fourth on Sunday. “I mean, not done … but seven races, a few months, you lose a lot of points when you are a second behind.”
Not every outfit this season has developed such a clear idea. Aston Martin is still at square one, despite making Adrian Newey, the most successful designer in F1 history, one of the highest paid people in the sport. After the drivers experienced such severe vibration in the car that they worried about nerve damage in their hands, neither was able to complete the full race distance on Sunday. Lance Stroll finished 43 of the 58 laps and his teammate, Fernando Alonso, managed just 21.
“We used the race as a learning session,” Stroll said. “There’s still quite a bit missing in terms of performance and reliability.”
But as far the world championship is concerned, it may already be too late for any team to make enough progress to trouble Mercedes.
“We feel a lot of contentment coming away from Melbourne today,” Wolff said. “It is great to see Mercedes back at the front of the field.”