Has Monza really made Mercedes betting favourites again?

The fastest circuit on the Formula 1 calendar always has its own way of rewriting the narrative. At Monza, where average speeds exceed 250 km/h and drivers spend 20% of laps at full throttle, Mercedes has unexpectedly emerged among the bookmakers' leading contenders. But the question is not whether they will win at Monza, but whether a performance at a unique circuit is enough to erase 18 months of development deficit.

Context needs to be clarified from the start: Mercedes entered the 2026 season with the W15, a nearly complete redesign after two seasons struggling with the zero-pod concept. In Bahrain, they finished 6th and 7th, more than 45 seconds behind Red Bull. In Melbourne, George Russell retired due to an engine issue on the formation lap. But by Montreal, Lewis Hamilton reached the podium for the first time, and at Silverstone, Russell took pole with a top speed of 328 km/h at the speed trap — the highest among the top three teams.

This change did not come from any major upgrade. It came from the Brackley engineering team finally understanding that the problem was not the aerodynamic concept, but how the car behaved in low-speed corners. The floor upgrade introduced at Imola significantly improved the car's behavior in slow corners, where the W15 previously lost up to 0.4 seconds per lap to Red Bull. But at Monza, with only three slow corners out of eleven, this advantage becomes almost irrelevant.

What flipped the betting odds was not Mercedes' speed, but Red Bull's instability. Max Verstappen, who won 7 of the first 10 races, has managed only 1 win in the 5 races before Monza. The RB20, initially hailed as a leap forward over the RB19, has revealed a critical weakness over kerbs — exactly the type of kerbs present at Monza at both first chicanes. At Zandvoort, with its high kerbs and banked corners, Verstappen finished only 6th, behind both McLarens and a Ferrari.

Telemetry data from Monza practice sessions reveals an interesting picture. Mercedes chose the lowest downforce level among the top three teams, with the rear wing set at minimum angle of attack. Hamilton's top speed in the long run reached 351.2 km/h — 2.4 km/h faster than Verstappen and 3.1 km/h faster than Norris. But in exchange, they lost up to 0.7 seconds in the Ascari section to McLaren, which requires medium-high downforce. This was a deliberate trade-off: Mercedes' strategy team calculated that overtaking ability at Monza, with two DRS zones longer than 1 km, matters more than speed through medium-speed corners.

I watched the Monza practice sessions from the technical area, and what caught my attention was not the speed figures, but how Mercedes managed the rear tires. In the long run on medium tires, Hamilton maintained a degradation rate of just 0.8 seconds after 18 laps — the best figure among the top five teams. Russell, running the same compound, even improved his lap time on lap 14 thanks to proactive tire temperature management. This suggests the W15 is not just fast over one lap, but has much better race pace than at the start of the season.

But this is where I want to offer a contrarian view. Mercedes becoming betting favourites at Monza says more about the weakness of the rest of the field than about their actual strength. Look at the bigger picture: Mercedes has only 3 podiums in the first 14 races. They have not won a race since São Paulo 2026. The gap to Red Bull in the constructors' standings was still 187 points before Monza. A win at Monza, if it happens, would be a huge morale boost, but it cannot erase the fact that the W15 remains the third most difficult car to drive on most other circuits.

The bookmakers, always more sensitive to money flow than to technical data, adjusted Hamilton's odds from 12/1 to 4/1 within 48 hours before the race. This is too large a shift compared to what was happening on track. In qualifying, Hamilton could only manage 3rd, behind Norris and Verstappen. Russell was 5th, behind Sainz. Looking at qualifying results, Mercedes was the third-fastest team — no more, no less. But the money flowing into Mercedes does not reflect one-lap pace; it reflects expectations about race strategy and the ability to capitalize on safety car situations — something Mercedes has done very well at Montreal and Silverstone.

I recall the Montreal race, where Hamilton maximized two safety car periods to climb from 7th to the podium. That strategy was not on the drawing board — it was in how the engineering team read the race dynamics and made pit decisions in less than 5 seconds. When the changing room door closes, I understand that tactics are not on the drawing board. It's in how a strategy engineer stays calm when 14 cars pit in the same lap, how a driver trusts the team's decision without asking twice.

But Monza is a different circuit. Here, pit strategy plays a secondary role — only 2 of the last 10 races at Monza were won by drivers starting outside the top 3. The importance of the starting position, combined with the difficulty of overtaking in the Lesmo and Ascari sections, means that the Monza race is usually decided in the first lap. Mercedes, starting 3rd and 5th, does not have enough of an advantage to impose their game on Red Bull and McLaren.

So what is the answer to the question in the title? Monza may have made Mercedes betting favourites in the eyes of the bookmakers, but that does not mean they are genuine title contenders. A win at Monza would be an important milestone in Mercedes' rebuilding process, but it cannot hide the fact that this team is still far behind Red Bull and McLaren in overall development. Injury records do not lie — only those who read them know how to hide the truth. Similarly, the odds board does not lie about money flow, but it also does not reflect the full truth about on-track speed.

Looking ahead, what concerns me more is how Mercedes handles the final phase of the season when they must balance developing the W15 for the current season against shifting resources to the W16 project for 2026. With new aerodynamic regulations taking effect in 2026, every team must make difficult choices about resource allocation. Mercedes, with its infrastructure and budget advantages, could pursue both directions. But do they have the will to do so, or will they repeat the mistake of 2026 when they tried to save a car that was fundamentally wrong from the start?

At Monza, where history is written with speed and courage, Mercedes has the opportunity to write a new chapter. But a new chapter cannot be written in one race. It needs to be written over months, over seasons, through each upgrade, each strategic decision, each lesson learned from failure. And that is why I am not quick to conclude that Monza has changed the landscape. It has only changed how we perceive the landscape — and that is an important difference.