Marko critical of Wolff: "Now he doesn't want to take a step until 2025"

Helmut Marko doesn't understand much about the course Toto Wolff is currently taking at Mercedes. According to the Red Bull Racing advisor Mercedes regularly changes its mind during conversations on how to proceed with Formula 1 in the future. According to Marko it causes skewed faces among the teams in the king's class of motor racing.

Discussions have been going on for several weeks about whether or not to lower the budget ceiling even further. There were plans to go back from $175 million per season to $100 million, but that met with resistance from Ferrari and Red Bull. Mercedes seemed to like it all, but if we can believe Marko they have come back to that position in Germany.

Mercedes not to follow

"A few weeks ago Wolff thought everything was fine when it came to budgetary restrictions", the 76-year-old Austrian outlines the situation. "Mercedes was even willing to accept a reduction to $100 million a year, he announced (Wolff, ed.). But now he wrote a letter to the FIA, where he suddenly talks about 145 million dollars a year".

That's not the only plane on which Mercedes now turns back 180 degrees. That's because Wolff did the same when he talked about a salary ceiling for drivers in Formula 1. "At first he insisted on setting a cap on drivers' salaries for 2021. Now he doesn't want to take that step until 2025", Marko at Auto Bild questions the behaviour of the current world champion.

Causes of fickle Wolff?

Possibly it has to do with a new contract for Lewis Hamilton. The British driver has considerable demands and Mercedes may only be able to meet them if there is no upper limit for driver's salaries. The fact that Mercedes does not agree to a budget ceiling of 100 million dollars can in turn have to do with other wishes of the Daimler driver. Wolff has already been whistled back by Mercedes' parent company in 2020, protesting against Ferrari's 2019 engine and whether or not to race in Australia during the corona crisis.