The row has followed both teams into the Baku paddock, with Ferrari still without a win in 2026 and Mercedes on course to sweep both championships with Kimi Antonelli.

Toto Wolff opened the door at the Dutch Grand Prix. He complained that Mercedes “haven’t got the money to put developments on the car” and pointedly wondered whether Ferrari and McLaren would still have the same freedom late in the year.

Reporters put the comments to Fred Vasseur at the following race in Monza, and the Ferrari boss refused to play along.

“I don’t want to make any comment on the budget cap of Toto. I don’t appreciate when someone is speaking about my budget without any clue,” Vasseur said.

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“We will continue to develop until the last race with the same pace, and we will have a buffer with the cost cap.”

Vasseur was blunter in a separate exchange about the same intervention, saying he had initially assumed Wolff was joking.

“When I first heard it, I thought it was a joke,” Vasseur said, adding that he found the comments “rather ironic” coming from Wolff, and that policing rival teams’ spending is “the FIA’s job.”

Ferrari still winless in 2026

The context makes Wolff’s line awkward. Antonelli leads the drivers’ championship on 292 points after winning the Spanish Grand Prix at round 14, 81 clear of team-mate George Russell. Lewis Hamilton is a distant third on 191 for Ferrari.

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Antonelli already has eight wins, six poles and 12 podiums this season, including a startling Monza victory from 19th on the grid.

Mercedes’ 503 constructors’ points dwarf Ferrari’s 358 and McLaren’s 306. Ferrari, for all their front-loaded upgrade blitz, have yet to win a race in 2026.

$215m ceiling for 2026

The 2026 cost cap sits at $215m after the FIA lifted the ceiling to absorb this year’s overhauled power-unit and chassis rules. Ferrari have stacked their developments through the first half of the season, and Vasseur insists there is margin left for the run-in.

Nine rounds still to go, starting in Azerbaijan. Track action in Baku opens on Thursday and the Grand Prix runs on Saturday, 26 September, moved off its usual Sunday slot to respect the country’s Remembrance Day the following day.

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