梅赛德斯为何难以快速推出媲美迈凯伦的升级
梅赛德斯表示正在开发一项重大升级以应对迈凯伦等对手带来的威胁，但承认在此之前将面临艰难的战斗。车队领队托托·沃尔夫指出预算上限限制了车队的研发灵活性。
梅赛德斯表示，他们正在进行一项“重大升级”，以帮助自己在一级方程式中反击对手重新构成的威胁，但承认在此之前将面临一场艰难的战斗。
关于梅赛德斯是否有能力应对迈凯伦（尤其是）在赛车方面取得的进步，一直存在诸多猜测，车队领队托托·沃尔夫表示，成本上限的限制正在制约他们。
当被问到兰多·诺里斯在荷兰大奖赛上取得本赛季第二场胜利，是否意味着车队需要加快推出升级件时，沃尔夫说：“我们没有钱把研发成果装到赛车上。”
据了解，他的这番言论是指车队无法在本赛季开始时制定的、将新部件分批推出的计划之外，再灵活地增加额外的升级。
梅赛德斯今年迄今为止在升级方面采取了与对手不同的策略，与许多其他车队相比，其为赛车引入的改进更少。
自5月的加拿大大奖赛以来，它一直没有推出重要的新套件，而升级的缺乏也让外界不确定：它是为备战今年投入太多了，还是在把一切都留到赛季后期一次性释放。
在梅赛德斯的常规赛后总结会上谈到更广泛的冠军争夺战时，梅赛德斯赛道工程总监Andrew Shovlin表示，车队并非完全没有升级——只是在等待合适的时机。
“显然，现在在性能方面的竞争已经非常激烈了，”他说。
“我们仍在等待我们的重大升级落地，那会有所帮助。但与此同时，这将是一场艰难的战斗。”
梅赛德斯下一次升级的时间尚不明确，但几乎不可能在低下压力的蒙扎赛道带来——尤其考虑到车队还选择在那里为积分榜领跑者 安东内利 接受引擎罚退。
要么是在马德里大奖赛的街道赛上推出会更有利——尽管在一条全新赛道上引入新部件可能并不理想——要么就是在马来西亚/新加坡背靠背比赛时推出。
梅赛德斯的升级策略，无论在时间安排还是资源投入上，似乎都与其他车队形成了良好的错位。
目前尚不清楚为什么尽管这支车队引进的新部件如此之少，却在资金上受到如此严格的限制，而其他车队却能够持续进行研发。
根据国际汽联（FIA）公布的2026年申报升级项目的官方数据，梅赛德斯（梅赛德斯）在引进新部件的数量方面明显落后。
法拉利（法拉利）引进了40个新部件，红牛（红牛）和迈凯伦（迈凯伦）各为38个，而梅赛德斯（梅赛德斯）仅增加了24个。
然而，这些基本数字并不能完全反映在研发上投入了多少资金，例如，一个新底板的花费要远高于一个后视镜罩。
一项对各新部件成本等级进行加权的分析显示，红牛在四支领先车队中名列前茅，略微领先迈凯伦，法拉利位居第三，梅赛德斯则落后不少。
梅赛德斯的思路或许可以从技术总监James Allison最近的发言中找到线索，他表示梅赛德斯在赛季开始前在研发上投入了巨资。
他们认为这样做有助于充分利用新规则下非常激进的发展斜坡，其带来的改进幅度是2025年的六到七倍。
Allison在梅赛德斯的YouTube频道上表示：“我们在空气动力学和车身方面做出了一个内部决定，我们要比以往任何时候都晚几周才定稿赛车。”
“我们当时执行的计划几乎没有任何应急预案可言。由于那个计划，我们在第一辆车、第一场比赛时，就倾尽了人力所能达到的最大程度去爬那条非常非常陡峭的研发坡道。为了做到这一点，我们把一切都掏空了。”
Allison认为其他车队推迟了投入，以便在赛季中引入更多升级，这导致各车队的节奏不同步。
他承认，这种策略确实带来了一些风险，就是在赛季的某些阶段会被对手追上来。
“我们的策略就是努力保持领先，确保我们交付的下一批性能提升能够恢复到原来的状态——恢复我们在赛季初所注入的优势。”Allison补充道。
“我们只需要挺过这些可怕的时刻——别人带着他们的炫酷新套件来参赛。”
Allison认为，风洞工作中每个月都能找到约0.2秒的提升，所以追赶的机会仍然很大。
因此，如果梅赛德斯自5月的加拿大大奖赛以来还没有释放任何升级，那么它可能还有0.6秒的研发潜力可供使用。
理论上，这足以让它决定性地领先于竞争对手迈凯伦和法拉利，后两者凭借最新的升级包已经缩小了差距，甚至已经追平。
英文原文
Mercedes says it has a “major update” in the works to help it fight back against the renewed threat from rivals in Formula 1, but admits it faces a tough battle until then.
There has been intrigue about how capable Mercedes is of responding to the step forward that McLaren in particular has made with its car, with team boss Toto Wolff suggesting that cost cap limits were restricting it.
Speaking about whether Lando Norris’s second victory of the season, in the Dutch Grand Prix, meant it needed to fast-track some upgrades, Wolff said: “We haven't got the money to put developments on the car.”
It is understood his comments were in relation to his team not having flexibility to do extra updates beyond a plan it has put in place since the start of the season to space out its new parts.
Mercedes has adopted a different strategy to its rivals so far this year with upgrades, introducing fewer developments to its car compared to many other teams.
It has not had a major new package since the Canadian GP back in May, and its lack of upgrades has led to uncertainty about whether it spent too much in the build-up to the year, or if it is saving everything for a late season splurge.
Speaking in Mercedes’ regular post-event debrief about the wider title fight, Mercedes’ trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin said the team was not without upgrades at all – it was just biding its time for the right moment.
“It's obviously getting really tight now in terms of performance,” he said.
“We're still waiting for our major update to land, and that will help. But in the meantime, it is going to be a bit of a fight.”
The timing of Mercedes’ next upgrade is unclear, but it would be highly unlikely to come for the low-downforce Monza – especially with the team electing to take an engine penalty there for points leader Kimi Antonelli.
It would be much more beneficial either for the Madrid Grand Prix street race - although introducing it at a new circuit may not be ideal - or for the Malaysia/Singapore double-header.
Mercedes’ upgrade tactics appear well offset to others, both in terms of timing and resources.
It is unclear why the team is so restricted on money despite having introduced so little, while others are able to keep up developments.
Based on the official FIA figures for declared upgrades over 2026, Mercedes is well behind when it comes to the number of new parts it has brought.
Ferrari has introduced 40 new components, Red Bull and McLaren 38, while Mercedes has added just 24.
However, those basic numbers do not tell the full story of how much spending has been done on development, as for example, a new floor costs a lot more than a mirror shroud.
A weighted analysis giving a cost grade for each new component puts Red Bull at the top of the leading four teams, just ahead of McLaren, with Ferrari third and Mercedes quite a bit adrift.
A clue to Mercedes’ approach may have come from technical director James Allison recently though, who suggested that Mercedes spent heavily on development before the start of the season.
It felt doing that would help capitalise on a really aggressive development slope with the new rules that was delivering improvements six to seven times greater than 2025.
Allison told the Mercedes YouTube channel: “We took a decision internally on the aerodynamic side and on the bodywork side of the car that we were going to leave it later than we've ever left a car before by several weeks.
“We were going to do a plan that had less than no contingency in it. As a result of that plan, we got as much of that very, very steep development slope in the first car at the first race as I think was humanly possible to get in there. And we emptied everything out to do that.”
Allison believes other teams delayed spending to introduce more in-season upgrades, putting squads out of phase.
He accepts that the strategy did bring with it some risks in terms of there being phases of the campaign where rivals caught up.
“Our strategy is just to try to keep our nose ahead and to make sure that the next lump of performance that we deliver will restore the status quo ante – restore the goodness we put in at the beginning of the season," Allison added.
“We just have to ride out these scary events where other people bring their fancy new bits.”
Allison reckons that, with gains being found in the windtunnel of around two tenths for every month of work, that opportunities are still great to catch up.
So if Mercedes has not unleashed anything since May’s Canadian GP then it may have 0.6-seconds of development potential available.
That would in theory be enough to decisively put it ahead of rivals McLaren and Ferrari which have closed the gap or even caught up with their latest packages.
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