That year, F1 introduced an annual cost cap of $ 145 million, followed by a further $ 5 million year-over-year reduction in subsequent seasons.
The cap meant that the biggest F1 teams had to downsize in order to operate as close to the spending limit as possible, with little scope for unforeseen costs like accident damage.
When the F1 teams agreed to test three sprint races this season, an additional budget cap of around $ 500,000 was a key factor in getting the sprint racing plan on track.
The Emilia Romagna Grand Prix crash that involved Williams drivers George Russell and Bottas, whose Mercedes W12 was all but written off, highlighted Mercedes’ new concerns about crash damage affecting the rest of the team’s budget endangered.
“The new factor for us this year is that we are all limited in costs,” said Andrew Shovlin, Mercedes trackside technical director.
“That kind of damage isn’t really planned. Our drivers have been incredibly good at getting through the season without breaking much over the past few years, and the bill in terms of carbon and metal work is sure to be huge.
“So we’re going to see what we can actually save and get the cars back together for Portimao. But it’s pretty worrying when you have incidents like this.”
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Team boss Toto Wolff said the Brackley team “always fears a total depreciation of a car” because it works so close to the cost ceiling, a painful exercise that some employees had to endure the off-season.
Shovlin explained that expensive accidents would mean the team would have to cut spending elsewhere, which could impact their auto development program.
“If you have a number of such major accidents causing significant damage, it will definitely exceed our allocation for what we have available for the parts,” added Shovlin.
“In an ideal world, you bring it to life, you don’t break it, whatever you break, hopefully it’s the end of life or something that will soon be out of date. But that’s definitely not the case here.
“So it’s really a factor in the cost cap and the money has to come from somewhere.
“If it becomes a big problem, it can ultimately put a strain on your development budget. So we need to be aware of how things go from here.”
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