Formula 1 teams exceeding the budget cap has been an important topic since Red Bull was handed a serious penalty for exceeding the agreed amount in the 2021 season. Mercedes got off to a disappointing start in the 2023 campaign after their car concept did not yield the results they hoped following a promising end to last year. A switch to a new design for the W14 by Monaco in an attempt to improve their fortunes was made, but not without some questions over how much it would impact their budget cap for the season. While significant upgrades during a season can cost a team millions, Team Principal Toto Wolff is not concerned over the impact it will have given the amount of people they have employed to monitor their budget. "We have set up a huge organisation now in our financial department; 46 people that monitor the cost cap down to the last screw, and we look at the trend of our spending during all of the year," Wolff told media, including RacingNews365.com . "What we've done is allocated resources to various projects and we've stayed below that line [budget cap] all year last year and are still below that line this year. "That is considering a normal development switch for next year and this is still pretty much on track."
Wolff: Mercedes constantly learning about W14
Wolff adds that while there will be "fundamental design changes" for their car in 2024, the team is learning a lot about its current package through simulation rather than building specific parts. He added: "The good thing is that we're constantly learning about what the car is doing. "There is going to be some fundamental design changes for next year, but it's not that we are building stuff. It's more like what are we simulating? But that is not measured in money."
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