Toto Wolff has ex🐼plained his plan after three crashes impacted the car parts that Mercedes have at their disposal.

﷽George Russell crashed in Friday practice at the F1 Mexico City Grand Prix, a week after crashing in Te🏅xas.

Kimi Antonelli’s♕ crash during FP1 in M🎃onza also did some damage.

Mercedes are now under pressure to stay within the $135🐼m bu🅰dget for the season, with four rounds remaining.

“Kimi’s 🎃crash in Monza, George’s crash in Austin, George’s crash here,” Mercedes team principal said to media, including mahbx.com, in Mexico.

“I love a driver to push, and I’d rather crash a꧅nd we know what the car is capable of doing than not.

“In cost cap land, that’s a tric𒈔ky situation, so these three shunts put us on the back foot.

“Certainly the one that happened [on Friday in practiꦗce] was massive.

“We had to opt for a completely new chassis. That is a tremendous hit on ❀the cost cap.

“And we probably have to dial downꦡ on what we put on the car.”

Mercedes must react quickly for this weeken🌜d’s F1 ♈Sao Paulo Grand Prix.

Wolff explained: “Wꦰe will be hav𒐪ing two upgrade packages in Brazil, two floors, but that’s basically it.

“There’s nothing else that’s going to come.

“We have certain limitations on parts where we need to be cr༒eative, how we’re managing this, and certainly there is an impact.

“There is an impact on how many development parts we can put on the car,𝄹 because the answer is zero.”

Wolff was quizzed about whether Lewis Hamilton and Russell could run different spec floors in Brazil, or whether they’d r🌄un the same version.

“I’m always open mindeꩲd about what the drivers think,” Wolff said.

“I’m certain that George is going to go on the new, and Lewis may want to back-to-back th💟e old floor now in Brazil. We will certainly talk with him about what his preference is.”

Russell, after his crash in Texas, ran an older version of the🌌 W15 in Mexico.

Mercedes avoided further damage in ♔Mexico when Hamilton and Russell jostled for on🐷-track position.

But Russell came home with a compromised front ﷺwing, in f🌊ifth, a place behind Hamilton who was running the newer spec of the W15.

Wolff said about Russell’s damage: “When overtaking 💮Oscar Piastri out of the pits, he hit a bump and came𓆏 very close, turbulence might have played a role, and one of the main front flaps collapsed.

“So it w♒as a tremendous loss of downforce. I think in t𒉰he high speed, it was 20 points.

“He then kind of drove around it well,♕ but obviously the more your tyres are being hit, the more, the impact on lap time is exponential.

“So how can I explain the differ🍷ence in pace? At the end of the hard, yꦯou saw a difference.

“So two re🌟asons. First I think George drove very well all weekend, and on the other side, that maybe something in the update package that maybe doesn’t, causes… something that we don’t understand.

“Because we had two massive crashes in the same corner in Austin. But then we had a crash in the old cဣar too.

“The🍒se cars are so on the knife-edge that it will🦋 be an interesting experiment in Brazil to see whether there is high-speed instability or a low speed factor.

“So I don’t think we can j♉ust extrapolate that one is better than the other.”

What's the plan for Brazil?

Wolff was questioned about why Mercedes regularly look competitive on Fridays only for their꧋ rivals to gradually pull away on Saturdays and Sundays.

H🃏e said: “I do🍸n’t think we are running lighter, I don’t think we are attacking more.

“I think it’s a battle all season that we seem not to be able to extract more performance wh🌊en the track grips up.

“Some of the uglier behaviour comes out, the three🎶-wheeling, the bouncing, the instability when a car starts to really pick up speed in the high speed, is a pattern that we’ve seen.

“That is꧑ something that we need to get on top of. We have a direction for next year, but obviously we see the glass half empty at the moment.

“That's why we need to🌱 optimise t꧑hose last four races, what is it we can learn.”