F1: How did Mercedes bring so many upgrades all year and not exceed cost cap?

Ferrari has revealed that the decision to stop developing its 2022 car was forced on it because it had hit its spending limit under Formula 1’s cost cap.

Team principal Mattia Binotto said after the Brazilian Grand Prix that Ferrari had no choice but to stop development for this year because it had hit the circa $144 million spending ceiling for this season.

“It was not a choice; we simply finished the money for the budget cap,” he explained. “So simply we were at the cap. [There was] no more opportunity of developing the car, so we simply stick where we were.”

Which begs the question – Given the Mercedes W13 was so far off the pace at the start of the 2022 campaign, and it had to make so many improvements to get the car up front, how is it that they did not hit the 2022 cost cap and Ferrari did?

Is Mercedes cheating and hiding development work under the table? Toto Wolff said in this article that Mercedes has a lot of employees working remote.  Are they somehow paying them under the table, so their salaries do not show up on the books?

Perhaps, but a more likely explanation is that the Ferrari drivers crashed a lot more than the Mercedes drivers, and hence the crash damage broke the Ferrari bank.

“Obviously, we didn’t compromise next year’s car development,” Binotto continued. “But certainly, we decided to stop the current one because on top of this normal development on the current [car], you will need to produce the parts to bring them on track. And that was the extra costs that we couldn’t afford.”

As far back as Miami Binotto told us their early season slow rate of development in comparison to Red Bull was intended to allow a late season surge as their rivals hit budget limitations.

Seems they ran out of money before everyone else.

Mark C. reporting for AutoRacing1.com