Mercedes are approaching the new F1 2026 engine rules with confidence reminiscent of the team’s 2014 rise, says Sky F1 reporter Ted Kravitz.
Kravitz believes the team will prioritise their 2026 program over the new W16 car for the F1 2025 season.
F1 2025 marks the final season of the current regulations, with sweeping alterations to the chassis and engine rules – including a move to 50 percent electrification, 100 percent sustainable fuels, and active aerodynamics – on the way for F1 2026.
The new engine regulations represent the biggest change to the power unit rules since F1’s V6-hybrid era commenced in 2014, resulting in an unprecedented spell of dominance by Mercedes.
Mercedes emerged as F1’s dominant force in 2014, storming to a record eight consecutive Constructors’ Championship triumphs and seven Drivers’ titles split between Lewis Hamilton (six) and Nico Rosberg (one).
The team has struggled to hit the same heights since F1’s ground-effect regulations were introduced in 2022, with Hamilton and George Russell taking just five wins between them over the last three seasons.
However, Mercedes has been tipped to hit back hard in F1 2026 with the team’s preparations for the new rules widely believed to be advanced.
Hamilton, currently gearing up for his first season as a Ferrari driver, is just one of a number of high-profile figures to have left Mercedes in recent years.
Andy Cowell, the former head of the Mercedes High-Performance Powertrains engine division in Brixworth, was announced as the new team principal of the Aston Martin team last week.
Hamilton will be reunited at Ferrari with former Mercedes men Loic Serra and Jerome d’Ambrosio, who arrived at Maranello from Mercedes last October.
Despite the loss of key personnel, Kravitz has claimed that Mercedes is approaching F1 2026 with the same confidence as the 2014 rules with the team’s performance “gains” ominous for their competitors.
He believes the team is prepared to accept defeat in F1 2025, with achieving the new regulations as the main aim.
Asked if Mercedes’ focus will fully be on F1 2026 this year, Kravitz told the Sky F1 podcast: “I think so.
“They’ve lost some people from Mercedes. They’ve lost Loic Serra to Ferrari.
“But they have the same kind of feelings about the 2026 power unit, which is so different, as they had about the 2014 power unit.
“As Toto Wolff and James Allison say out of Brixworth, the noise is that they’re feeling the same kind of gains that they had when they swept the board under a new power unit regulation in 2014 as they will for 2026.
“I’d be surprised if Mercedes are contending [in F1 2025], even though they’ve got [the] Mercedes [board] in the background – and a Mercedes engine still won the Constructors’ Championship [with McLaren in 2024].”
A performance boost for F1 2026 would likely assist Mercedes in their bid to secure the signature of Max Verstappen, the Red Bull driver and reigning four-time World Champion.
Verstappen was frequently linked with a move to Mercedes throughout F1 2024 before the team signed teenage sensation Andrea Kimi Antonelli as Hamilton’s successor.
With the exact length of Antonelli’s contract unspecified, and Russell’s contract set to expire at the end of this year, Mercedes is widely expected to renew their interest in Verstappen ahead of F1 2026.
Red Bull will enter a technical partnership with US giants Ford for F1 2026 in what is set to be the first major test of the team’s newly established in-house Powertrains division.
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner admitted last month that RBPT-Ford is likely to require “time” to match the standards of Mercedes and Ferrari.
Verstappen is officially under contract with Red Bull until the end of the F1 2028 season, having signed a long-term extension to his deal following his maiden title triumph in 2021.
Speaking to media including PlanetF1.com at last year’s Dutch Grand Prix, however, Horner admitted that Verstappen’s contract contains a “performance element” potentially allowing him to look elsewhere if the team fails to provide a competitive car.
A report by the Times last October claimed that Verstappen’s exit clause will allow him to walk away from Red Bull if he is lower than third in the Drivers’ standings after a “significant” portion of the F1 2025 season has been completed.
If true, that would appear to mirror a clause widely reported to have been included in at least one of Verstappen’s previous Red Bull contracts.
During a visit to this year’s Spanish Grand Prix, Mercedes chief executive Ola Kallenius teased that the F1 2026 rule changes will represent “an opportunity” to lure Verstappen, quipping that the Red Bull star “would look good in silver.”
He told Sky Germany: “The best driver wants to have the best car. And that’s our job, to bring the best package together.
“The cards will be reshuffled in 2026. New order with new rules. That’s also an opportunity. Who knows?
“But I think Max would look good in silver, wouldn’t he?”
Appearing on the Formula For Success podcast last summer, former F1 team owner Eddie Jordan claimed that Wolff and Kallenius – as well as Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the owner of one-third Mercedes owner INEOS – met in Monaco earlier this year to prepare a “fighting fund” to cover Verstappen’s salary in anticipation of the Dutchman’s arrival.
Jordan said: “In Monaco, there was a meeting between Toto, Jim Ratcliffe of INEOS [and] Ola Kallenius and together they put a fighting fund to cover off the possibility of a salary requirement to cover Max.
“Max was aware of it. I’m not actually sure he was at the meeting, but surely that gives some indication about the steely commitment by Toto and his team to actually get Max on board at some stage.
“We shouldn’t be surprised to see Max in a Mercedes car in the next years.”
Jordan famously predicted Hamilton’s shock move from McLaren to Mercedes at the end of the 2012 season.
