F1 News: Toto Wolff questions Ferrari spending as cost cap hangs over title race

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Toto Wolff questions Ferrari spending as F1 cost cap hangs over title race

The cost cap is real

Graham Shaw Consultant Editor

Digital sports specialist running global brands for 30 years

Monday 29 June 2026 08:55 Updated: 09:04

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Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has questioned Ferrari's spending as the F1 cost cap hangs over the 2026 title race.

The Italian giants have been aggressive so far this year in upgrading their car, and a huge raft of changes helped Lewis Hamilton claim his first victory in red in Barcelona earlier this month.

The Scuderia brought yet more chassis changes to the Austrian Grand Prix over the weekend, along with the team's first ADUO-related power unit tweak to provide a little more horsepower. This time the plan did not deliver improved results as Mercedes claimed first and third with George Russell and Kimi Antonelli respectively.

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While Ferrari has been at the head of the arms race this season and making great strides as a result, at some stage the dreaded F1 cost cap will come into play.

Teams are only allowed to spend a finite amount of cash on improving their cars every year to hit the overall cap figure - which was $215million (£170.09million) when 2026 began.

Mercedes have been more circumspect in their upgrades so far in 2026, still managing to stay ahead of the pack with seven victories from the first eight races.

Wolff on Ferrari's aggressive upgrades

Wolff has watched Ferrari's aggressive strategy with interest, but he does not believe the Maranello team will be able to maintain that rate of development as the cap begins to bite.

“Ferrari has piled on countless modifications,” he explained. “I suspect they’ll soon hit their budget limit, because we simply don’t have the financial flexibility to do everything they do. We’ll have to see where that takes them.”

Ferrari have been aggressive so far in 2026.

Mercedes may not have the best chassis in 2026 (that is widely believed to be Ferrari) and it does not have the 'best power unit' either - that would be Red Bull per those controversial ADUO standings.

FIA ADUO Analysis
Engine	Teams	Upgrades
Red Bull Powertrains	Red Bull, Racing Bulls	Benchmark
Mercedes	McLaren, Williams, Mercedes, Alpine	One Upgrade
Ferrari	Haas, Cadillac, Ferrari	Two Upgrades
Audi	Audi	Two Upgrades
Honda	Aston Martin	Two Upgrades

F1 arms race is 'always a balancing act' for Mercedes

The Silver Arrows do though have the best overall package, and now Wolff is working out how best to gradually improve that in the coming months and stay under the cap.

“It’s always a balancing act between this season and the next,” he remarked. “We’re working hard on wind tunnel updates and, on paper, we have a solid package - but timing is everything.”

Mercedes leads the Constructors' standings by a massive 98 points over Ferrari after the Austrian Grand Prix, while Kimi Antonelli now leads team-mate George Russell by 40 points in the Drivers' standings.

The title races continue this weekend as the British Grand Prix takes place at Silverstone (Sunday July 5, 3pm UK, 10am Eastern).

How does the F1 cost cap work?

So the teams start the year knowing they can spend $215million overall - with a number of caveats.

Legal, HR, finance, marketing and sustainability initiative costs are excluded from that figure, as are driver salaries or retainers, the salaries of the three highest-paid staff ( normally including the Team Principal and Chief Technical Officer), costs related to heritage car programmes and race travel costs.

F1 RESULTS: Austrian Grand Prix final classificiation with all penalties applied

Written by

Graham Shaw - Consultant Editor

Digital sports leader with 30 years of senior level experience running global brands. Built sportinglife.com to be a behemoth in the UK as well as being in charge of the Planet Sport network of sites including planetf1.com, football365.com, teamtalk.com and planetrugby.com. Then grew goal.com to be the world's biggest soccer website in 18 languages and 37 territories. Was GM of Portals for Perform Group (now DAZN) with overall responsibility for sportingnews.com, spox.de and voetbalzone.nl.

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