Mercedes has brought its first major 2026 Formula 1 upgrade package to the Canadian Grand Prix, with both Kimi Antonelli and George Russell set to run the full changes from the start of practice in Montreal. The update arrives after Mercedes made only minor tweaks at Miami, where Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari all arrived with a significant package of their own.
The team waited until as late as possible to sign off the final parts for production, a move designed to squeeze out every last bit of development time before the car turned a wheel in Canada. That matters because the weekend includes sprint qualifying after practice, leaving little room to test, compare and correct before the first competitive session.
The package touches the front wing, front wing endplate, front and rear corner assemblies, floorboard, floor corner and floor body. Mercedes said the front wing outboard elements were dropped in height and run into the footplate, while footplate strakes were added and diveplane camber was adjusted. On the front corner, the upper lip camber of the cake tin has been reduced, and the brake duct inlet and exit have been increased to suit Montreal’s braking demands.
Further back, the floor updates are intended to improve local pressure distribution and generate more downforce. The rear floor body now has a reprofiled diffuser roof and changes to the sidewall, while the rear corner update repositions the rear cake tin winglets to improve diffuser performance. Mercedes said the aim is not just more peak performance, but “more robust flow structures” and “flow structure robustness throughout the operating envelope.”
The contrast with Miami was sharp. There, Mercedes was behind its rival frontrunners in upgrade activity while the others took a bigger step forward, and the FIA’s published upgrades document laid out how much was being added across the grid. Now Mercedes is answering with its own package at a weekend that offers less running than a standard grand prix, raising the stakes for whether the changes work quickly enough to matter.
For Antonelli and Russell, the job in Montreal is straightforward but unforgiving: make the new parts work immediately, or start the weekend already on the back foot in a shortened format. In a season where upgrade timing can decide who keeps up and who falls away, Mercedes has chosen to spend its development time late and aggressively, and the first verdict will come fast.
