Toto Wolff warns Mercedes has "a fight on our hands with Ferrari"

Toto Wolff says the Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix demonstrated that Mercedes won't dominate in 2026, claiming that “we have a fight on our hands” with Ferrari.

While George Russell and Kimi Antonelli comfortably qualified first and second, Ferrari's Charles Leclerc led at the start and battled hard with Russell in the early laps, with Lewis Hamilton running third after Antonelli made a bad start.

The two teams diverged on strategy when Mercedes stopped under the first virtual safety car and the Ferraris stayed out, and that contributed to an eventual 1-2 for the Brackley team.

Wolff believes that Ferrari showed enough performance to suggest that the Maranello team will very much be in the fight this year.

“When it comes to Ferrari before the race people were saying, ‘Well, you'll disappear in the distance, looking at your long runs.’ And that wasn't the case.

"We knew that they were strong on the starts, and that's what happened. It was a out and out battle between Charles and George at the beginning.

“And Kimi was a bit unlucky that the battery wasn't on the level that it should have been [at the start], on either car actually to a certain degree.

"And it was a three-way fight at a certain stage, with the two Ferraris, and George. And eventually Kimi caught up. So for me, the prevailing feeling is now we have fight on our hands with Ferrari.”

Wolff agreed with the observation that under the current rules it seems to be hard even for a quicker car to open up a gap.

“I think how the regs are at the moment is that in a close fight, close proximity to other cars, it's very difficult to break free. And therefore performances converge, which makes for good, exciting [racing] if it was really to continue like this.

“And once you have a free air, then the pace shows. Both components are part of a great race. And I think the race pace at the end was very encouraging from our side.

"But at the beginning, there was nothing between Ferrari and Mercedes.”

Regarding the overall quality of the racing he said: “The worry that we had was that it wasn't exciting in terms of the fighting. And the boost and the overtake modes made it actually quite interesting to watch on a track that is particularly difficult for energy.

"So we'll see how that goes in Shanghai.”

Wolff said the good form shown by Mercedes meant more after the team’s struggles over the past four seasons.

“Most importantly, there's so much contentment that I feel in the team at the moment. When had such a winning streak with these eight championships, and then very difficult years.

“We will still won races and finished second in the championship, but a solid one and two where you feel a season ahead that means you can fight for a world championship – that wasn't [the case] for a long time.

“And then therefore you're probably more grateful when you bounce back like this, having known the difficult years, than you're just rather continuing. And that's why I'm just very happy for everyone.”