Mercedes admit to facing an “incredibly tough challenge” dealing with a range of restrictions in 2021.
As champions, the Brackley-based team have 10 percent less aero testing time than last year under a new sliding scale aimed at closing up the field.
However, the biggest change comes in the wallet as Mercedes, who spent $442m on their team in 2019, face the new limit of just $145m this season for spending related mostly to car performance.
“The cost cap has changed the entire landscape of Formula 1 because it has levelled the financial playing field,” team boss Toto Wolff admitted at this week’s launch.
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“We had to change the structure of our team, the way we work with each other, streamline our processes and become more efficient.
“We fundamentally believe that the more efficient we are, the more performance gain that will translate to out on the circuit. So, it’s had a huge impact.”
In addition, the top teams at least are heading into this season facing a tough balancing act between spending money and development time on their 2021 cars at the expense of next year’s all-new designs.
“It’s a very difficult, very exciting challenge,” the Austrian said.
“On the one hand, we want to have a strong season this year and need to invest the appropriate resources to be able to achieve that. On the other hand, the changes for 2022 are so monumental, that we must develop the entire car from scratch.
“This means that every additional day of development time will add performance to the car.
“From a team’s perspective, that makes it very tricky to find the right point to transition team members from the 2021 project to the 2022 car. Some teams might even be willing to sacrifice this year’s performance so they can get a head start on next year’s car.
“It’s an incredibly tough challenge, but one we are looking forward to tackling.”
What Mercedes hope will work in their favour is last year, the team stopped development on the W11 much earlier than most, giving them more time and resources to put into the W12.
And technical director James Allison hopes that decision can offer a return under the 2021 cost cap.
“Probably the biggest weapon we could possibly have to attack these new financial regulations in a good way would be to launch with a car that is fast from the beginning,” he said.
“A car that is fast from the beginning is going to be cheaper to stay quick during the whole season. So let’s hope that we’ve put enough goodness into the car at the beginning of the year.
“[That will] allow our plans to unfold in a way that sees us operating at a high level under this new constraint.”
