Toto Wolff plays down contentious F1 rule impact on Mercedes struggles

Toto Wolff has dismissed the notion that Mercedes would have been able to recover from its initial missteps at the start of the contemporary ground effects era of F1 had it not been for the cost cap.

The Brackley-based squad started the previous regulations cycle on the back foot, opting to begin the 2022 F1 season with the ultimately ill-fated no-pods concept.

As the only team with the radical sidepod-less approach when the cars were unveiled, it soon became apparent that rivals had looked at the idea before developing past it, deeming it to be fatally flawed.

It took Mercedes another season and a half to come to the same conclusion about the philosophy, convinced in its virtue after George Russell's maiden grand prix victory late in the first year of the rules set.

The controversial cost cap, which limits the spending of all F1 teams, prevented the eight-time constructors' champions from making the gains it might have been able to achieve prior to its implementation in 2021.

Introduced to curb out-of-control spending, it was designed with the hope that it would produce a closer spread across the paddock, something that was achieved during the most recent era.

However, it also baked in early performance, with teams unable to pull themselves out of a hole if it had taken a developmental wrong turn, which is what happened to Mercedes.

"We were pretty conscious when the budget cap came, not only for the commercial side of things, but also to have a more level playing field among the teams, and not just the usual suspects that we are outspending each other," Wolff explained to media, including RacingNews365.

Nonetheless, the Austrian is not convinced of the notion that things would have been different over the period without the cost cap.

Initially set at $145 million, it was reduced by $5 million in 2022, before settling at $135 million for the past three years.

It did allow mobility of the F1 pecking order, although perhaps not as much as would have been achievable before.

Red Bull dominanted the championship at first, with Ferrari also proving competitive. McLaren showed that ground could be recovered in the event of early errors, but Mercedes could not drag itself back to title contention across the four seasons.

"So would we have been able to buy ourselves out?" Wolff added before analysing the dynamics between F1's leading quartet.

"Look at Red Bull or Ferrari, they have the same financial opportunities or possibilities that we have, so it would have, again, ended up in an arms race, and maybe it wouldn't have been McLaren fighting there with us on top [in 2025].

"So it would have come out to the same thing. This is just a meritocracy; the best man and the best machine win — and it wasn't us."