Formula 1's leading figures are adamant that a three-year cost cutting plan discussed in the F1 Strategy Group is the best way to sort out the sport's budget problems.

While the Strategy Group's decision to abandon plans for a cost cap has caused controversy, F1's bigger outfits are unmoved by the unease.

Instead, they think that their schedule of changes being discussed from next season until 2017, detailed below, will do exactly what is needed to bring the sport's finances under control.

Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff said: "I was for a cost cap actually, but we realized that some of the other big teams wouldn't go down that way, or couldn't follow that way.

"Ferrari is a good example because they have everything in one entity and it's difficult for them to have everything screened.

"It doesn't make sense to go against two or three of the big teams just for the sake of the principal of a cost cap, so I think it's worth following up in a way everybody can do.

"This is why going through the sporting or technical regulations is probably the right way to go. We've seen in the past that it worked."

Wolff said the fundamental aim of dramatically reducing F1 costs remained intact.

"We are working to find the best tools, getting together to find the best way forward," he said.

"We are definitely for a cost cap, we are for a ceiling.

"We are not running away in a spending war between the top teams, and we are also for a glide slope downwards so we can reduce the gap between the smaller teams and the larger teams."

The ideas that are up for discussion during Thursday's meeting are:

2015

Tire blanket ban

Fuel system simplification

Brake duct simplification

Front wing simplification

Gearbox usage flow brought in line with engine life

Increase in curfew

Ban on front and rear interconnected suspension

2016

Standard front impact structure

Standard rear impact structure

Standard final drive system

Standard steering rack

2017

FIA standard active suspension

Move to 18-inch wheel rims