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Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur has fired back at Mercedes’ Toto Wolff after the Austrian executive questioned how the Scuderia are managing to afford so many upgrades in F1’s cost cap era.
Maranello have been working on overdrive since the 2026 F1 season kicked off back in March, with the Ferrari SF-26 already receiving four major upgrade packages ahead of the ninth round of the season this weekend at Silverstone.
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Despite the most recent upgrade being one of Ferrari’s two ‘free’ engine upgrade tokens, gained through the FIA’s new ADUO initiative, the team’s rapid development has raised questions about how much of their yearly budget they have already spent.
Former Red Bull chief Helmut Marko believes it is “virtually impossible” for the FIA to track the amount of money each team spends, and the boss of the Scuderia himself has now issued a response to Toto Wolff’s words.
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Fred Vasseur thought Toto Wolff’s cost-cap comments were ‘a joke’
In the lead-up to this weekend’s British Grand Prix, in which Lewis Hamilton could achieve a record-extending 10th victory at Silverstone, Wolff told Sky Sports F1: “We’re a little bit surprised that Ferrari can throw these huge updates at the car in the way they do.
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“In my opinion, they need to be running out of money soon, cost cap money, because we can’t do that. We’re simply lacking the buffer in cost cap to be able to bring so many parts in the way they do.
“Hopefully, that’s going to change towards the end of the season when they won’t be able to bring any parts anymore. At least the logic would say that, and we’re going to come with more.”
Fred Vasseur was asked about his counterpart’s words in an interview with Italian outlet Corriere della Sera, highlighting how he is not “at all concerned” about Ferrari’s aggressive development strategy at the start of the campaign.
“When I heard that, I thought it was a joke,” he began. “I found it ironic that it came from Toto of all people… I’ve never been interested in calculating either Mercedes’ development or its budget; the FIA will take care of that.
“I don’t waste my energy on it, and I’m not at all concerned about Ferrari’s plans.”
The FIA introduced a capped yearly budget for each team in 2021 in an attempt to level the playing field. Before its debut, top teams were spending upwards of £350m per year on car development, a figure that was simply unsustainable for the whole grid.
Red Bull were found to have breached the cost cap during the 2021 season, and the Austrian constructor was subsequently fined somewhere in the region of £5.24m. They were also handed a 10% reduction in wind tunnel time for the following campaign.
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