F1 | Ferrari: Updates won't be as frequent in 2022 due to the budget cap
As the new regulations are approaching, Ferrari director Laurent Mekies predicts less updates to stay in the budget cap
The 2022 season will experiment a new era of F1, as the new regulations are kicking in. The biggest problem for the major teams is the budget cap. The big teams, just as Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari have indeed troubles in developing their cars and make them grow during the season while staying in the limits that the FIA and Liberty Media have set for the season.
According to Motorsport.com, Ferrari’s director Laurent Mekies revealed that Ferrari is going to stay low with the updates to present during the season, as they would excel the limits of the budget cap.
“Not compared to this year, because this year obviously was near zero, or at least for us was very little, but if you go back to 2019, 2018, we think you will see less, - Mekies explained – In 2018, 2019, in the big teams, you had something every race on the car or every other race.”
“It sounds difficult from our perspective to have a high number of updates with the constraints that we have – he continued – You need to keep a budget to develop during the year, because you will learn more and more, and therefore you will need ways to adjust. This has been the biggest challenge.”
How have you been waving in the new year, #Tifosi? 👋#essereFerrari 🔴 @Charles_Leclerc pic.twitter.com/vhxYDx3Mpp
— Scuderia Ferrari (@ScuderiaFerrari) January 6, 2022
For Ferrari, these constraints can be really damaging, considering that they have managed to jump up to the third Constructors’ Place after a season and a half of troubles just thanks to the updates they have brought.
Ferrari’s director kept explaining how it is impossible to bring upgrades while staying in the budget set by the new regulations. “Once you have defined that envelope, that's what you have for aero development, that's what you have for mechanical development, then it goes to each department and aero will say: 'OK with that, I will be able to do two developments or three developments', and then you reschedule all your plans to feed that. That's effectively what we do now. How much of a challenge it is depends on your level of competitiveness to the others.”
“If you have a big issue at the beginning of the year and nothing is correlating and so on, you may invest some of your package two or package three money,– Mekies pointed out. - You need to fix it anyway now, so you take your parts, you put them into the bin, and that's the way you will deal with it."
