James Allison

It really dives into the strong points between McLaren, Mercedes and Ferrari and really what could happen when we come to the Monza Italian Grand Prix.

You mentioned James Allison a few moments ago with Mercedes.

Now...

Give us a bit more insight there.

And Vettel, of course, at this time, he's known for his hard work and his work ethic.

In fact, the first year with Ferrari, James Allison commented on how good that was.

Mm.

I think probably people have almost forgotten how good Vettel was in those, those Red Bull years, not just through the results he was getting, but how he tuned himself into the counterintuitive driving style of the car, the work he put in, regularly the last guy out of the paddock, really detailed, perhaps even too detailed debrief, great recall of laps, et cetera.

... that's a good trajectory, and they were-

They were, yeah

... all in good shape even though James Allison left in 2016.

James Allison had gone.

How come we can't develop as fast as the other teams?" And I think Mercedes' own technical team gave us a very revealing clue not long into the season.

Note James Allison.

He described earlier in the year how aggressively Mercedes attacked the launch version of their car, pushing heavily before the season, leaving very little contingency, and effectively spending a lot of their available early performance before racing began.

And sure enough, we got six race wins out of six.

And on paper, that looks like a dominant performance from Mercedes in the first half of 2026.

But if you listen to the comments from both Toto Wolff and James Allison, they are giving you a completely different story whatsoever.

Toto saying that Mercedes have left too many points on the table.

The rivals have closed that performance gap.