Lewis Hamilton sent early threat by Toto Wolff as Brit turns from friend to foe

Lewis Hamilton has been warned that Mercedes will be a strong competitor when he moves to Ferrari at the end of the season. Toto Wolff’s squad have no plans to ease up their development path to focus on the 2026 regulations period.

Hamilton made the decision to join Ferrari before the season had started, but Mercedes’ early woes would have only made the decision seem more timely. The Silver Arrows were forced to wait until the ninth race of the year to claim their first podium finish of 2024.

However, since then Mercedes have made significant progress, winning three races before the summer break and establishing themselves as sporadic threats to McLaren and Red Bull in the fight for race victories. Team principal Wolff expects that this trajectory will continue into 2025.

“This is the crux of the matter every year, and especially if you have such a big regulatory change, are you going to compromise one year or the other?” he told Autosport. “But I'd like to take it from Niki's [Lauda] motto, when being asked. ‘Would you rather win this one or the next one?’ And he says, ‘Both.’

“Sometimes it is much less complex than one thinks. Probably the transition of people and capability into the 2026 regulations is going to happen a bit earlier than it would under stable regulations, but it's not going to be game-changing.

“Nobody's going to switch the machines off in January unless you are really nowhere. But there is nothing to gain because between P10 and P7 doesn't make a difference for us anyway. We are fighting for victories and podiums, and cannot write it off.”

The general perception in the F1 paddock is that the Silver Arrows will be a substantial threat when the 2026 regulations get underway thanks to their prolific engine development. The Mercedes power unit underpinned their success in the turbo-hybrid era, and early talk about their latest offering is promising.

“I think Mercedes have done an exceptional job which is why I was very happy to re-sign back up for an extension to it,” said Williams team principal James Vowles on the Beyond the Grid podcast.

“And I think you’re going to see differences in power units that don’t exist. Today, pretty much all power units are much of a muchness. I think that will all change in 2026 and you will see a difference between the power units. I don’t think it will be the levels you saw in 2014 where there was such a wide spread between the field.”