Back on Top: Mercedes Take Their Ninth Constructors' Title
Mercedes have clinched a ninth Constructors' Championship to equal Williams' record and a flying start to 2026 is what carried them over the line in the end.
Level with Williams
Mercedes are Constructors' champions once again. In a wet São Paulo Grand Prix won by McLaren's Lando Norris, George Russell finished fourth and Kimi Antonelli fifth and that was enough to put the title out of Ferrari's reach. The team arrived in Brazil 126 points clear and needed to leave with a gap of 129, so they didn’t have to do anything flashy. It is their ninth title and their first since 2021, which puts them level with Williams. Only Ferrari with 16 and McLaren with 10 have won more. Toto Wolff also now matches Sir Frank Williams for the most Constructors' titles by a team principal.
The win completes a double. A week earlier in Mexico City, Antonelli sealed the Drivers' Championship, and at just 20 years old he became the youngest world champion in the history of the sport.
From Struggles to a Rocket Ship
It’s easy to forget how rough the last few years were. Mercedes won eight straight titles from 2014 to 2021, then spent four seasons stuck with a ground-effect car that was hard to tame. Wolff says he is proud of the way the team has bounced back and reckons very few sports teams manage a turnaround like it.
The new 2026 rules gave them the reset they needed. The cars have active aerodynamics and began with a 50/50 split between engine and electrical power and the MGU-H heat recovery system is gone. Mercedes have been building hybrid power units since 2009, so a rulebook that puts electrical power at the centre of performance suited them well. Their chassis team at Brackley and their engine team at Brixworth got everything working together and the car arrived at winter testing as the favourite for the year, with a strong enough chassis, a powerful engine and clever energy deployment.
The Start That Did The Damage
Australia confirmed pre-season theories about Mercedes’ pace. Russell turned pole into a win with Antonelli right behind him and then Antonelli took over, winning in China, Japan, Miami, Canada and Monaco. That made six wins in a row and Mercedes topped qualifying at every one of the first ten race weekends.
It was not perfect. In the early rounds the two drivers lost more than 20 places between them right off the line, most notably in the China sprint, and Wolff called it unacceptable. The engineers made fixing it a priority and the problem went away with the first ADUO upgrade. For Antonelli, who had a difficult rookie season, the change was huge. The cushion of points he and Russell built in the spring ended up being the foundation of the whole championship, and Mercedes left Brazil with 12 wins from 20 races this season with three to go.
The Chasing Pack Arrives
Barcelona ended the streak, with Ferrari taking their first win of the year. McLaren and Ferrari made big steps forward with their chassis and both won races on merit. Norris won at Zandvoort and Hungary back-to-back and then won again in Brazil from pole. By the autumn, Red Bull had worked their way to the front of the field with Verstappen taking three wins. Ferrari stayed the closest rival in the standings but could never quite catch up.
Mercedes had problems of their own. Battery reliability issues forced a fix that will cost them grid penalties later in the year and Wolff admitted that the cost cap left them without the budget to keep up with the development rate of McLaren and Ferrari. Until August they had declared 24 new components, compared with 40 from Ferrari and 38 each from Red Bull and McLaren. Instead of chasing every upgrade, they banked their early points and waited before bringing a big package of their own.
Why The Early Lead Mattered
Rivals may have found speed through the summer and autumn but the gap Mercedes opened in the first few months was too big to erase. Their closest challengers could not make up the difference and by the time the fight tightened, the title only needed a quiet afternoon in the rain.
Even so, Wolff said his mind had already moved on to improving the car after a difficult race in Brazil. Having waited five years for this one, Mercedes know how quickly the picture can change.
Article written by Ayaan Rahman
