As Red Bull bids to continue its lock out of race victories in Hungary this weekend, its closest competitors still admit they are behind the Milton Keynes-based squad.
While major upgrades introduced by both Mercedes and Ferrari have produced encouraging steps forward, the scale of the car changes they want to introduce have been limited on budget grounds.
Both teams are of the view that if spending was unlimited then they would have worked on much bigger overhauls of their cars to help them get on terms with Red Bull.
Asked how much their 2023 developments were being restricted, Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur said: “The main driver of this is the cost cap, that you can't do a new project as was probably the case a couple of years ago.
“It means that you have to adapt your project to the situation and in these conditions, I think we did a decent step forward.
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“You have also to consider that the regulation is much more prescriptive than before and it's quite difficult to do a big step into the season.
“But we are, as everybody, already working on the project of next year, trying to correct the direction.”
Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff added: “I share Fred's opinion. The cost cap is a real constraint now. Because you cannot just go for a B-spec car.
Source: Autosport