Mercedes technical head James Allison has shared what weapon Mercedes will be using as they look to battle the 2021 budget cap during the upcoming Formula 1 season. With teams restricted to a budget cap of $145 million, big spenders like Mercedes, Ferrari, and Red Bull will be at a disadvantage come the 2021 season. That being said, Mercedes have a clear strategy in mind to make the most of the situation. "Probably the biggest weapon we could possibly have to attack these new financial regulations in a good way would be to launch with a car that is fast from the beginning because a car that is fast from the beginning is going to be cheaper to [keep] quick during the whole season," Allison said in an interview with Mercedes' official YouTube channel. "So let’s hope that we’ve put enough goodness into the car at the beginning of the year, to allow our plans to unfold in a way that sees us operating at a high level under this new constraint, where we are fighting with exactly the same guns as everybody else.” Allison also explained how the German outfit are taking a granular approach in order to optimise the production of car's parts, making it cheaper as a whole. "This [approach] means figuring out how we can make components on our car to last longer, how to build them more cheaply and how to make sure we maintain the same sort of performance that we did previously, despite the fact that our overall budget has come down," Allison said. "It’s a huge challenge and building the car is only part of it. We then have to operate the car, develop the car, we have to do the entire season with all the uncertainties that we face in terms of how often it might crash, or how reliable components are and then need resources spent to fix that." Allison also stressed how the team are planning to adapt to the new aerodynamic rules, which primarily target the floor and rear brake duct arrangements. "Much of our focus over the last weeks and months has been trying to understand what the effect of those changes are on the main flow fields around the car and how to try to find back the performance that is lost when you first adopt those new regulations," Alisson concluded. The full interview can be viewed below
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