Toto Wolff has revealed Mercedes no longer has the budget this year to carry out the car change requests made by Lewis Hamilton and George Russell.
In a season when Mercedes is playing catch up to Red Bull following its rival’s stunning start to the season in winning all nine grands prix, the team has opted to change its developmental direction.
That resulted in the release of an upgrade package ahead of the Monaco Grand Prix, whilst the W14s are sporting a new front wing for this weekend’s British Grand Prix.
Other updates will be filtered out over the course of the campaign to which a plan and budget have been allocated, leaving the team unable to pursue suggestions from seven-time F1 champion Hamilton and team-mate Russell.
They will have to be put on hold until next season when the team will again have its full $135 million seasonal budget available.
“The cost cap is a real constraint now because you cannot just go for a B-spec car,” explained Wolff.
“Lewis and George have been pretty vocal about what they would want to change in the car, and that’s simply not possible because we are lacking the financial corridor.
“That’s why we’re looking very much at next year to change these things.”
As to whether this year’s car is simply a step towards one that should be closer to the team’s overall idea of what is required to again win races and titles, Wolff said: “When I would ask Niki (Lauda) many years ago, do you want to concentrate on this year’s championship or next, he would say both.
“So always continuing to develop these cars is important for our understanding, and at the same time you mustn’t waste resources when you go to, let’s say, a different layout of the car next year.
“So it’s balancing it out but I guess that many teams are already quite a large chunk of development into next year.”
Ferrari has found itself in a similar situation as Mercedes this season in that it has also changed the development of its car, and is now building on the platform of its recent switch.
It, too, however, is also now stymied by the cost cap.
Team principal Fred Vasseur said: “Toto is right. The main driver is the cost cap, that you can’t do a new project, which wasn’t the case a couple of years ago.
“It means you have to adapt your project to the situation. Under these conditions, I think we have made a decent step forward.
“You have also to consider that the regulations are much more prescriptive than before and it’s quite difficult to make a big step during the season.
“Like everybody, we’re already working on next year’s project, trying to correct the direction.”
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