Stella doubts Wolff’s ’no money’ claim
"All teams receive extra space in their reporting"
Andrea Stella has questioned Toto Wolff’s claim that Mercedes has effectively run out of development budget for the W17.
The comments come after Lando Norris won back-to-back races for McLaren, increasing the pressure on Mercedes as Ferrari and McLaren continue closing the performance gap.
Wolff said at Zandvoort that Mercedes simply does not have the financial room to keep matching its rivals’ upgrade programs.
"We don’t have the money to put developments in the car," he said.
Stella is not convinced.
"I would like to believe Toto, but I don’t really do that," the McLaren team principal said.
He pointed to additional cost-cap flexibility available to teams.
"All teams receive extra space in their reporting within the cost ceiling," he said. "If I’m right, that’s about three million that you can use in the 2026 report for the calculations."
Stella suspects Mercedes is still developing the car aggressively behind the scenes.
"I am sure that Mercedes, now that they see their rivals are raising the bar, will benefit from the developments that are undoubtedly taking place behind the scenes."
"I’m sure the car in the wind tunnel is a lot faster than the car they have on the track."
And he fully expects new parts to appear.
"I’m pretty sure they’ll have upgrades," the Italian added. "Of course it would be nice if it wasn’t, but I don’t even dare to think about that."