David Coulthard warns Toto Wolff that Mercedes’ ‘Achilles heel is real’ after Barcelona Grand Prix

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Mercedes suffered even more reliability problems with their power unit in Barcelona, proving to David Coulthard that their ‘Achilles heel is real.’

The Silver Arrows may have the best overall package on the 2026 grid, evidenced by six wins out of seven races thus far. But reliability has proved to be a huge problem for Mercedes and their customer teams.

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McLaren criticised Mercedes at the start of the season over withholding information about the power unit. Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri did not start in China due to separate technical issues, while the former retired in Canada and Monaco due to power unit failures.

The works team have also faced reliability problems, with George Russell retiring in Canada. It was exposed again at the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix, as Kimi Antonelli was forced to retire with a mechanical fault on lap 61.

David Coulthard: Mercedes’ ‘Achilles heel is real’ after more reliability problems in Barcelona

Tensions have flared between Mercedes and the customer teams, notably McLaren, over reliability. It was even said that McLaren considered abandoning Mercedes engines and moving to Audi.

Now that the problems are affecting the works team, it is something that Toto Wolff and Mercedes will have to address. Ferrari are taking huge steps forward with their new upgrades, with Lewis Hamilton winning in Barcelona by over 20 seconds.

For Coulthard, the race proved that Mercedes’ ‘Achilles heel is real’, and Wolff understands that the problem is ‘unacceptable’ and must be solved.

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Coulthard said on Up To Speed: “But when you talk about the engines, I spoke to Toto Wolff after the Grand Prix, and one thing I really respect about Toto: in success, he’s there and he does the interviews; in failure, he’s there and he does the interviews.

“Because it’s very easy to suddenly bury your head when things are not going so well and you could see he’s super professional as always and he’s going,’ Yeah, this is not acceptable, the reliability we have right now across the board.

“It’s affected Williams, it’s affected McLaren, it’s affecting us.’ Alpine, I don’t recall one particular issue, but I assume they’ve had something.

“So the Achilles heel for Mercedes is real and that’s going to be a head-scratcher because engines are massively complex and not easy to solve those issues.”