F1 Budget Cap ‘Painful’ for Mercedes 2022 Development

F1 has introduced a budget cap in 2021. The budget cap was introduced to make the playing field level for all the teams. Mercedes, however, feels the cost cap is a bit “painful” for them to adjust.

The budget cap was set to $145 million for all the teams. Furthermore, an amount of $5m was reduced this season to bring it to $140 million. This has made some teams happy while some teams are struggling to cope with this.

The big teams are especially voicing their concern against the strict budget cap. Mercedes, Red Bull, and Ferrari namely are against this specific rule. However, a rule is a rule. Hence, everyone needs to comply with this.

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff explained, “It has been very, very difficult to structure the company and the organization in the right way to meet the cost cap at $140m. Also in a high-inflation environment, and we are reducing by five million, we have a situation where you are not able to increase the costs and the payroll. That is extremely painful.”

The budget cap hindered Mercedes’ structural development

With the new structural changes in the car, it has been difficult for the teams to prepare their cars according to plan. To comply with the budget and bring in important changes, the task has been uphill.

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Talking about the situation, Toto Wolff further stated, “The added pressure of the cost cap makes it very difficult to then change the car fundamentally because everything is planned, every upgrade and their related costs are planned. Therefore, we are much more restricted with the budget cap in our ability to implement creative processes onto the car.”

Before the compulsory budget cap introduction, the top teams like Mercedes, Red Bull, spent around $400 million to $450 million behind development every season. Whereas the smaller teams like Haas could barely manage $100 million in total. The sport was losing its competitiveness. In all honestly, to bring more competitiveness and give everyone a fair chance to excel, the budget cap was introduced.

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From 2014 to 2021, Mercedes has been claiming every Constructor’s championship trophy. The post Hybrid era has been very beneficial for the German team. Apart from them, they secured seven driver’s championship titles with Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg.