“Every spend more has a performance advantage,” Toto Wolff explains how a ‘minor breach’ can have a big impact on the championship


“Every spend more has a performance advantage,” Toto Wolff explains how a ‘minor breach’ can have a big impact on the championship

Mercedes' team principal Toto Wolff

On Monday, after a delay in the proceedings, the results of the financial regulations from 2021 finally came out. It had been widely reported that two teams – Aston Martin and Red Bull, were said to have breached the regulations. And lo and behold, when the review came out, the two were found guilty of just that.

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Red Bull were found guilty of a procedural and a ‘Minor Overspend Breach’. Well, how minor is minor? Reports circulating suggest it’s somewhere in the region of 2 million dollars. Is that really minor? Because it would have made a difference in the incredibly hotly-contested championship last year, and a breach is a breach. This is the view of Mercedes’ team principal, Toto Wolff.

As per Planet F1, the Austrian said: “Is it a so-called minor breach, because I think the word is probably not correct? If you’re spending five million more, and you’re still in the minor breach, it still has a big impact on the championship. To give you an idea, we obviously monitor closely which parts are being brought to the track from the top teams every single race – for the 2021 season and the 2022 season.”

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Toto Wolff explains Mercedes W13 couldn’t be slimmed down due to budget restraints

Toto Wolff
Toto Wolff

No one can be sure how much Red Bull actually overspent. But Toto Wolff reckons that even an overspend of less than a million can make quite a significant difference in performance: “We can see that there are two top teams that are just about the same and there is another team that spends more. We know exactly that we’re spending – three and a half million a year in parts that we bring to the car.

He elaborated: “So then you can see what difference it makes to spend another $500,000. It would be a difference.” then cited an example of their own car this year, the Mercedes W13: “We haven’t produced lightweight parts for the car in order to bring us down from a double-digit overweight because we simply haven’t got the money.”

Wolff concluded by saying that every penny spent has a performance advantage: “So we need to do it for next year’s car. We can’t homologate a lightweight chassis and bring it in, because it’s just $2 million that we will be over the cap. So you can see every spend more has a performance advantage.”

It remains to be seen what the penalty will be for Red Bull (and Aston Martin). As it’s only a minor breach, severe penalties are not expected, but people (including Lando Norris, who asked for a ‘hefty penalty’ for whoever breached the cap) have been advocating for the harshest possible punishment in order to set a precedent.

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