Dan Fallows picks £3.1bn-valued constructor to topple McLaren as the next Formula 1 champions

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Dan Fallows has had his say on who he thinks will be the next team to win an F1 world championship after McLaren’s current winning period ends.

The Woking-based constructor won their first constructors’ championship in F1 since 1998 last season, and are on course to make it consecutive titles in the current campaign.

Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri are also locked in a fight for the 2025 drivers’ title. The Australian driver currently has the better of his British counterpart as he leads the standings by 31 points.

Team orders have been the story of the season for McLaren in their championship hunt. Piastri was instructed to let Norris pass him at Monza, sparking a debate between fans over the use of them on two championship protagonists.

READ MORE: Everything you need to know about McLaren F1 Team from team principal to engine

Former Aston Martin boss Dan Fallows believes Mercedes will overturn McLaren’s current dominance

With the 2025 titles looking certain to be heading McLaren’s way in 2025, many have turned their attention to who they think will be the team to topple the British constructor in the future, with F1’s 2026 regulations being noted as a turning point for the pecking order of the grid.

Speaking on a recent episode of James Allen on F1, former Aston Martin team principal Dan Fallows was asked who he thinks will win the first post-McLaren constructors’ championship.

“I’m gonna go for Mercedes,” the aerodynamicist answered, before elaborating with, “That’s because, as an organisation, they’ve been hurting for this regulation set. They’ve probably realised within the last year or two that their best chance now is to finish off this regulation set, but really focus on 2026.

“They are an absolutely awesome force to be reckoned with. They’ve slightly kept themselves out of the conversation over the last couple of years, and it’s been more about the drivers and, you know, how Kimi’s getting on and so on.

“But I think they see this as a big opportunity, and they will have put a huge amount of effort into it, and when they really get going, they are very, very difficult to stop.”

One of the key factors stoking the rumours of the £3.1bn-valued Mercedes F1 team returning to the top of the standings in 2026 is due to their dominance in 2014 at the beginning of the turbo-hybrid era in F1.

The team is expected to have the superior engine again next season, despite Mercedes staff downplaying the idea of their imminent dominance.

READ MORE: All you need to know about Mercedes F1 Team from team principal to lineage

Red Bull may struggle in 2026 due to their current engine forecasts

One front-running team that we could see slip down the order is Red Bull. The Austrian constructor is developing their first F1 engine within their Ford-backed Red Bull Powertrains department.

Ted Kravitz believes Red Bull could struggle as much as Cadillac as they join the grid next season as a brand new entry into the sport.

Of course, Red Bull has been in the series for over two decades now, but 2026 marks the first season that they will be running an engine developed entirely in-house.

The topic of Red Bull’s new engine was one of the leading factors in the recent rumours about Max Verstappen’s desire to leave the team for greener pastures.

Verstappen was forced to reconsider his future at Red Bull due to it being reported that engineers were struggling to come up with a fix for the power unit’s electrical energy being depleted before the end of long straights on circuits such as Monza, Baku, Spa and Montreal.

Nothing concrete will be known about the performance of the Red Bull engine until the start of pre-season testing in January, but Verstappen will be hopeful that engineers can give him the best possible tools to make a challenge for a fifth F1 title.