Mercedes boss Toto Wolff addresses the cost cap breach rumors for the 2022 F1 season

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff recently suggested that the FIA has produced a meticulous report on finances, with their own team having received a detailed questionnaire.

Speaking to the media, including Sportskeeda, in Hungary, Wolff said that for now they have not received any indication about any kind of breach in any area.

When asked about the questionnaire sent to Mercedes for clarification on their budget cap, Wolff said:

“I think they came back with tons of questions to lots of teams and that’s how robust the process is. It’s good, strong auditors that are beneficial for Formula 1. Because we need to stop any kind of unintentional or intentional breach of the cost cap. It’s like technical and sporting regulations.”

Asked whether he is worried that Mercedes could have unintentionally breached the budget cap, the Austrian replied:

“We have had our audit was finished a couple of months ago and since then we have no indication that we’ve fallen short of anything as far as we understand.”

According to Wolff, the FIA went to many teams, including Mercedes, with a questionnaire asking them to explain various matters in their finances. The Austrian team boss is quite certain that their audit has been successful and that there are no concerns about breaching the cap for now.

A recent report by L’Equipe suggested that Red Bull, Aston Martin, and Mercedes were the three teams being investigated by the FIA. The French newspaper suggested that Aston Martin and Mercedes are in more trouble while Red Bull might be safe.

In the wake of various reports during the Hungarian GP weekend, the FIA clarified that none of the teams had been certified yet and that the process was still ongoing.

Clarifying the process and the investigation, the FIA statement to the media, including Sportskeeda, said:

“In light of recent reporting, we’d like to reiterate the ongoing process preceding financial regulation certification for the teams - none of which have been informed of their certification status. The auditing fieldwork is still ongoing and is scheduled to conclude in the upcoming weeks, after which there will be a period required for the finalisation of the review."

The statement added:

"There is not, and has never been, a specific deadline for certification, and any suggestions of delays to this process or potential breaches are completely unfounded – the Cost Cap Administration will formally communicate its findings according to the procedure set out in the Financial Regulations. The timeframe is intentionally not fixed in order not to prejudice the robustness and the effectiveness of the review.”

---

Mercedes boss believes it is going to be tough to police the F1 budget cap with big teams

Toto Wolff feels it is difficult for the FIA to get to the bottom of projects such as applied sciences and other stuff that teams are involved in.

The Mercedes chief claimed it was easier to police their own team because they had everything under one roof. However, he believes it is difficult for their team to use personnel from other engineering projects for their F1 work due to the budget cap.

Asked how difficult it is for the FIA to police other subsidiaries that big teams have apart from F1, Wolff said:

“I think very hard because the big teams have thousands of people in various projects, commercial and non commercial projects. I think for us or with us its a bit easier because we have everything in one entity. So you can see the employees are all in one place and you can see where have we attributed to a lot on behalf of our variety of subsidiaries."

He continued:

"I’ve never been shy of saying that with the 2026 regulations, we should get rid of all that over all. In real world, its quite a challenge because we are making revenue and money with our engineering projects and that means we cannot assign a person that is working in formula 1 not even for a minute into non-f1."

He added:

"But it is the right thing to do for the sport, say this is f1 this is non f1 and the moment someone spends even ten minutes on an F1 project he should be fully F1. Definitely the way we need to go.”

The FIA have not announced a particular date by which they will declare the verdict for the 2022 season budget cap audit. However, it is expected to be earlier than last year, when the result and report were announced in October.

Whether Mercedes have breached the budget cap intentionally remains to be seen. Wolff’s words indicate it is highly unlikely for the Brackley team to have done so.