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Ferrari will have to slow their development rate soon to avoid breaking Formula 1’s budget cap rules, Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff believes.
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After Mercedes scored their seventh win this year, Wolff said they are holding back on development to avoid over-spending.
“It’s always the balance between next year and this one,” he said. “We are running hard on updates in the tunnel and on paper we have already a decent upgrade, but we are not deploying it yet. You have to do it at the right time.”
Ferrari became the only team to beat Mercedes to a grand prix victory at the Circuit de Catalunya two weeks ago after introducing an upgrade for their SF-26. However Wolff doubts they can continue to bring new parts for their car at their current rate without breaching the cap.
“Ferrari has been throwing things at their car massively,” he said. “I guess they will be running out of cost cap soon because we couldn’t do it because we simply haven’t got the margin financially. So let’s see where that leads them.”
George Russell scored his first victory since the season-opening race in Austria. His team mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli finished third, narrowly failing to catch Max Verstappen’s Red Bull before the end of the race.
“He came on strong, but then obviously the closer he got, the more difficult it was to maintain the pace with the dirty air,” said Wolff. “It was exciting to see whether he would catch up at the end and whether Kimi would catch on him.
“Stefano [Domenicali, F1 CEO] told me it was good TV.”
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