Fred Vasseur hits back at F1 rival Toto Wolff over Ferrari budget claim

Fred Vasseur has hit back at Toto Wolff after the Mercedes team principal questioned whether F1 rivals Ferrari and McLaren would have the money to keep developing their cars through to the final grands prix of the current campaign.

Wolff recently conceded that Mercedes was feeling the financial squeeze under the cost cap, adding that the Brackley-based squad has been spacing out its developments deliberately across the campaign.

For this season, given the major change in the regulations, the budget cap was raised to $215 million. Naturally, the rapid rate of development so far has exacerbated the spending of some teams, and the speed at which updates have been added.

"We haven't got the money to put developments on the car," said Wolff. "And I said it before that we are trying to evenly split that through the season based on our calculations of when we can bring the biggest updates and optimising the championship points.

"The ride has been a bit tougher [of late] than at the beginning of the year. We can do what we can do. That's why it is a development race. If you bring an update, each of the top teams will have a couple of tenths in it, at least, and that's what we lose.

"The ride has been a bit tougher than at the beginning of the year."

Put to Wolff that Ferrari and McLaren appeared to still have funds available for upgrades given the developments that had been applied, he suggested that would only become clear later in the year.

"You will see towards the end of the season whether they are going to be able to deploy as much stuff onto the car as they do now," he said.

"Someone might have a different strategy in spending more at the beginning and then in the middle of the year than towards the end."

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As for Ferrari, it seemingly front-loaded a series of upgrade packages across the flyaway and European rounds this year.

It has drawn scrutiny from its rivals over how much financial headroom the team has left under the cost cap heading into the final stretch of the season, starting with this Saturday's race in Azerbaijan.

Asked whether Ferrari had the budget to keep developing its car for the remainder of the season, Vasseur made it clear he was unhappy with Wolff's remarks.

"I don't want to make any comment on the budget cap of Toto," he said.

"I don't appreciate when someone is speaking about my budget without any clue. I won't make any comment on the others.

"But what I know is that we will continue to develop until the last race with the same pace, and we will have a buffer with the cost cap."