Toto Wolff believes that as many as "five or six" F1 teams will be able to battle for wins in the future thanks to the budget cap evening the competition out. In the 2022 season, the budget cap will be lowered to $140 million. At the same time, a wave of new technical regulations come into effect, with one of the aims being that it will allow cars to overtake and race each other more easily. Mercedes boss Wolff is not concerned by the possibility of one team understanding the new rules better and gaining an advantage - perhaps in the style of Brawn GP in 2009 - as he expects the financial requirements to create more of a balance in the field. "I believe that the budget cap will bring a lot of things into line," Wolff told German publication Auto Motor und Sport . "If one finds a loophole and runs away with it, everyone will copy it. The cars will all be very similar. 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."
Creating more balance amongst F1 teams will be "good for the sport"
Wolff admits that some of the bigger teams were initially not entirely happy about having their financial advantage taken away when the budget cap came into effect. However, the Team Principal thinks that the move will be good for Formula 1, and predicts that it will enable several teams to fight for victories in time. "Of course, the teams that had deep pockets were not particularly happy about the fact that an advantage was taken away from us," Wolff explained. "But the whole thing degenerated into an arms race between Red Bull, Ferrari and us. Now it will all be more balanced. "I think that in the future, five or six teams will be in contention for victories. That is good for the sport. Also, the same team doesn't always win the Superbowl."
Challenges Mercedes faced from the budget cap
Wolff might welcome the budget cap in this respect, but he is open about the fact that it still caused some difficulties for the team. When asked about the biggest challenge Mercedes faced in cutting back, Wolff responded: "That we had to carry out a restructuring that not only affected people, but also essential processes had to be changed. "For example, for the first time we had to train financial officers to identify cost savings across the entire value chain." There was not one area in particular, though, where the Silver Arrows focused on the most in terms of making savings. "There is no single cost factor that was most affected," Wolff said. "We went through all areas and tried to lose as little performance as possible."
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