The days of Mercedes’ domination are long gone as the Red Bull F1 team have now emerged as the most dominant side. Red Bull have been so dominant this season that it has seemingly also irked Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff.
Wolff has recently taken a jab at Red Bull team principal Christian Horner for complaining about the upcoming 2026 regulations. Since Horner has repeatedly urged the authorities to change the rules for the 2026 season, Wolff has claimed that his counterpart is afraid of what is to come in the future.
“It’s a bruising day today”
Toto Wolff says Mercedes had ‘no pace’ in Austria ❌ pic.twitter.com/bmZQWDGI6e
— Sky Sports F1 (@SkySportsF1) July 2, 2023
The Austrian believes that this is the case because the Milton Keynes outfit have been lacking when it comes to the development of their 2026 engines. Since Red Bull for the first time in their history are developing their own engines in a partnership with Ford, they are seemingly on the back foot when it comes to experience in this aspect.
Toto Wolff claims Christian Horner is not up for a new challenge
Christian Horner recently has often voiced his concerns to both the F1 Commission and during team principal meetings about the need to be cautious about the upcoming rules for the 2026 season. Since there’s a greater move to sustainability, Horner believes it is important for all of them to ensure that they get the new engines right as any mistakes from their end could really affect the “spectacle” of the sport.
However, Toto Wolff does not share any of these concerns. In fact, he believes that there is desperation from Red Bull’s side to have the rules changed as their “engine program is not coming along well“. He added that he believes that the rule changes “frightens” Horner as his side do not have the answers to this problem.
After explaining why he believes Red Bull are desperate to have the rules changed, he made it clear that there is no chance that there would be any changes in the current regulation. As quoted by motorsport.com, he said, “That’s not going to happen. Zero chance. Capital letters. So I don’t know why these things are coming up“.
Wolff then stated that there is no need to change the current regulations as all the teams have had discussions over it for years now. He then explained how it is the same new rules that prompted new engine suppliers like Audi and Honda to join the sport.
Rule changes for 2026 season explained
Since F1 has a mission of achieving net carbon zero emissions from the 2030 season onwards, the 2026 regulations are also planned in a way to edge one step closer to achieving that aim. The primary change that is planned for these new set of regulations is that the new power units will run completely on sustainable fuels.
And despite the change to sustainable fuels, the power units are still expected to provide a horsepower of 1,000. However, his change would mean that the cars would be a more difficult to drive.
Team principals like Toto Wolff are excited for this rule change as it will provide a unique challenge for all the sides. Wolff believes that since sustainability is very important for the future, he welcomes this rule change no matter how difficult it is likely to be to implement it.
