Mercedes may still lead Formula 1’s Constructors’ Championship, but the competitive picture at the front is becoming much less comfortable. After Lando Norris delivered a second consecutive Grand Prix victory for McLaren at Zandvoort, championship leader Kimi Antonelli offered a striking assessment: Mercedes no longer appears to have the outright fastest car.
That does not mean Mercedes has suddenly fallen away. Antonelli and George Russell finished second and third in the Dutch Grand Prix, completing a double podium and underlining just how competitive the W17 remains. But Norris’s pace during the second half of the race provided perhaps the clearest evidence yet that McLaren has closed what had previously looked like a significant performance gap.
Antonelli sounds the warning
Speaking after Zandvoort, Antonelli said Mercedes could no longer consider itself the fastest package in Formula 1, pointing towards the progress McLaren has made since introducing upgrades around the Hungarian Grand Prix. Reuters reported Antonelli’s assessment following a weekend in which the two teams traded the advantage across different sessions.
Mercedes had plenty of reasons for optimism. Russell won the Zandvoort Sprint, Antonelli had shown strong pace throughout the weekend and both Mercedes drivers ultimately stood on the Grand Prix podium. Yet the trajectory of Sunday’s race was harder to ignore.
Antonelli briefly took the lead from Norris following the early restart and initially looked capable of controlling the race. As the stints developed, however, Norris closed the gap, reclaimed first place and began to pull clear. Formula 1’s official race report confirmed Norris took his second consecutive Grand Prix victory, ahead of Antonelli and Russell.
The 11-second gap matters
The finishing margin arguably tells more of the story than the podium positions alone. Norris was able to win by more than 11 seconds despite remaining on older tyres after a late Virtual Safety Car, while Antonelli had stopped for fresher rubber.
Formula 1’s post-race team analysis noted that Norris closed down Antonelli during the second stints before making the move for the lead, then remained comfortably ahead through the closing stages.
One race is not enough to declare a permanent change in Formula 1’s competitive order, particularly when circuit characteristics can amplify the strengths and weaknesses of individual cars. But Zandvoort followed Norris’s victory in Hungary, giving McLaren consecutive wins and suggesting its recent improvement is more than a one-off.
Norris is not convinced Mercedes has been overtaken
Interestingly, Norris himself has pushed back against the suggestion that McLaren now possesses Formula 1’s outright best car. According to Reuters, the reigning champion still views Mercedes as the stronger all-round package, while acknowledging McLaren has made meaningful progress, particularly in higher-speed sections.
That distinction is important. The championship is not simply moving from Mercedes domination to McLaren domination. Instead, the evidence points towards a much tighter contest in which track layout, tyre behaviour, setup and execution could increasingly determine which team has the advantage on a given weekend.
Mercedes also continues to lead the Constructors’ Championship, and a double podium at Zandvoort hardly represents a poor weekend. The concern for the team is that its previous performance cushion may be disappearing at precisely the point when the championship enters its decisive phase.
Why Monza could give us another answer
The Italian Grand Prix now provides an intriguing next test. Monza’s long straights, heavy braking zones and high-speed nature create a very different technical challenge from Zandvoort, making it a useful benchmark for whether McLaren’s gains translate across contrasting circuits.
Mercedes already faces an additional complication with Antonelli set for a grid penalty following a planned power-unit change. That could make outright qualifying pace even more important for Russell while forcing Antonelli into an overtaking race at his home Grand Prix.
McLaren, meanwhile, arrives with momentum. Two consecutive victories for Norris have changed the tone around the front of the field and increased the pressure on Mercedes to demonstrate that Zandvoort represented circuit-specific weakness rather than the beginning of a broader shift.
Ferrari cannot be ignored at home
There is another factor in the equation: Ferrari. Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc finished fourth and fifth at Zandvoort, close behind Russell, and Ferrari believed its race pace was stronger than its final result suggested.
Team principal Fred Vasseur identified qualifying pace and execution as the areas requiring improvement, saying Ferrari needed to deliver a cleaner weekend at Monza. F1’s official post-race report records Vasseur’s assessment that Ferrari’s race pace was decent but that the team had not maximised the weekend.
That means Monza may offer something more interesting than a straight Mercedes-versus-McLaren comparison. If Ferrari can translate its race pace into a stronger qualifying position in front of the Tifosi, Formula 1 could arrive in Italy with three teams genuinely capable of influencing the fight at the front.
A championship advantage under pressure
Antonelli remains in the strongest championship position, and Mercedes retains the advantage in the Constructors’ standings. Neither title fight has suddenly flipped because Norris won two races.
What has changed is the margin for error.
If McLaren can continue producing the level of race pace demonstrated at Zandvoort, Mercedes may no longer be able to rely on the underlying speed of its car to recover from difficult qualifying sessions, strategy calls or operational mistakes. Norris’s recent form also gives McLaren a driver capable of consistently exploiting that improved performance.
Monza should therefore tell us considerably more. A strong Mercedes response would reinforce Norris’s argument that the W17 remains the benchmark across a broader range of circuits. Another McLaren victory, particularly on a very different track, would make Antonelli’s warning increasingly difficult to dismiss.
Tech Torque Verdict
Mercedes has not been knocked from the top of Formula 1 overnight. A double podium at Zandvoort and the championship standings make that clear. But McLaren has done something potentially much more important: it has removed the sense that Mercedes possesses an inevitable performance advantage.
Norris’s back-to-back victories have turned the competitive picture into a genuine question rather than a foregone conclusion. If the MCL40 can reproduce its recent pace at Monza, the final part of the 2026 season could become significantly tighter than Mercedes would have wanted.
For now, Antonelli’s claim that Mercedes is no longer Formula 1’s fastest car remains an assessment rather than an established fact. Monza could provide the next piece of evidence.
