Toto Wolff thinks the Budget cap ‘will balance’ the F1 grid

Toto Wolff thinks the Budget cap ‘will balance’ the F1 grid

Toto Wolff

Other than the dramatic and intense title dual between Mercedes Lewis Hamilton and 2021 world champion Max Verstappen, the dominance in car performance Mercedes and Red Bull cars had over their rival teams stood out the most. The top 3 finishers in constructers championship, Mercedes at P1, Red Bull at P2 and Ferrari at P3,  showed how having big financial backing is important to peruse championship in F1.

The 2022 season will host new regulations which the FIA hopes will help them to reduce the inequality in car performance that been haunting F1 race track over the years. One of the most important decisions is the budget cap of $140 million that will come to effect in 2022. Though the new budget gap will not make F1 as equal racing field as in IndyCar or NASCAR because of the advantage in developed infrastructure the big 3 have over others it will help to get the field closer as opinionated by Mercedes boss Toto Wolff recently.  

Find out what Toto Wolff said

Toto Wolff
Toto Wolff

Toto Wolff said the budget gap will bring a lot of things and said if one team finds a loophole in new regulations the other team will copy it and the car will be similar. Toto Wolff said though there won’t be an imminent change present in 2022 it will even out and there won’t be any team with a car which is a second ahead of others.

FS Video

“I believe that the budget cap will bring a lot of things into line, if one finds a loophole and runs away with it, everyone will copy it. The cars will all be very similar,”  Toto Wolff told Auto Motor und Sport.

“There may still be differences in the first year, After that it will even out. There will no longer be a team that is a second ahead,” Toto Wolff added.

Toto Wolff acknowledged that F1 became an arms race between Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes over the years due to their deep pocket and they were not much font of new regulations ending their advantage. Toto Wolff went on say that five or six teams will fight for victories in future which is good for the sport

“Of course, the teams that had deep pockets were not particularly happy about the fact that an advantage was taken away from us, but the whole thing degenerated into an arms race between Red Bull, Ferrari and us. Now it will all be more balanced,” Toto Wolff said.

“I think that in the future, five or six teams will be in contention for victories. That is good for the sport….,” Toto Wolff explained.

Red Bull, Mercedes
Mercedes Boss Toto Wolff and Red Bull boss Christian Horner

When asked about how the new lowered the budget cap of $140 million for 2022 season, which will also host new regulations the Mercedes boss replied that they trained their financial officers to identify cost savings across the entire value chain and added that Mercedes gave equal importance to all the cost factors to meet the Budget constraint without reducing cars performance.

“For the first time we had to train financial officers to identify cost savings across the entire value chain, there is no single cost factor that was most affected, we went through all areas and tried to lose as little performance as possible,” Toto Wolff added.

Also read: 2021 World Champion Max Verstappen reveals condition on which he will join the 24 hours of Le Mans