Tension in Formula 1, Ferrari-Mercedes back-and-forth: “When you do it, you’re geniuses…”

Ferrari had a sensational Friday at Silverstone, securing pole position in the sprint qualifying session with Lewis Hamilton, who finished a hair’s breadth ahead of Mercedes driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli. The progress made by the Maranello team was evident thanks to updates that made Mercedes boss Toto Wolff turn up his nose.

The head of the German team immediately went on the offensive, setting his sights on the Prancing Horse: “We’re a bit surprised that Ferrari is able to introduce such substantial updates. In my opinion, they’ll soon run out of money—the funds allocated under the budget cap. We can’t do that; we don’t have enough leeway under the spending cap to introduce as many parts as they do.”

“In Montreal, we introduced a major package and then some minor components, and so did Red Bull and McLaren. Only Ferrari seems to have no limits in this regard, and on top of that, they were expecting the ADUO and showed up with a new engine. But to bring a new power unit, you have to have started development six months ago.”

These remarks did not sit well at all with Ferrari team principal Vasseur, who responded sharply to his colleague at the press conference: “When Red Bull or Mercedes are developing, they’re geniuses. When we do it, we’re cheating. I think we need to calm down a bit on this point. We didn’t bring more components than Red Bull or other teams. I don’t know if it was a joke, because if you take it seriously, it really sounds like an accusation that we’re not respecting the budget cap.”

“Asking Toto what he was referring to—I just find that strange. Sometimes you might get the impression that we’re bringing a major update, when in reality it’s just a modification of a few parts, nothing more.”