F1 cars are currently as heavy as they have ever been, with the current rules stating a minimum requirement of 796 kilograms to be maintained by each team. This represents a difference of 40kg compared to 2021.
Technical regulations have meant that the weight of the cars has been increasing with every change and it has led to some drivers stating that they are less enjoyable to drive in the modern era.
If we trace our minds back to the time before the hybrid engines came into play, cars weighed 642 kg, whereas they were around 500 kg in the 1990s.
This has largely been done to address safety concerns, but the FIA looks set to make a change to these rules to facilitate more exciting driving.
It is worth noting that the impact suffered when things go wrong and a collision takes place is also greater in the modern era owing to greater mass of the cars.
F1 cars are still some way behind other competition cars, but they are clearly the fastest and therefore, safety concerns are of utmost importance.
“Cars have gone up [in weight] since Lewis [Hamilton] started in 2007, so have gone up by about that [150kg] amount,” said Nikolas Tombazis, head of FIA’s single seaters.
“That is split in fairly big chunks between the power unit and obviously all the electrical parts and so on.
“We feel that we can’t do, much as we would like from a purely motorsport enthusiasts point of view, [is] to have a normally aspirated [engine] and so on, but the reality is that we need to be responsible for what’s happening with the [planet] in general.
“The other one is safety, and third factor is complexity, and the fourth factor is dimension.
“So basically, when the cars went wider and bigger wheels and so on, over the years, longer, they became quite a lot heavier.
“Now we believe that what we doing for 2026, we can probably lose 40/50 kilos from that weight.
“It’s not a walk in the park. We believe it’s feasible to do.”
Will F1 cars become lighter in the future?
Some discussions are taking place behind the scenes at FIA where the idea of getting rid of the minimum weight requirements altogether has been suggested.
This has been done with a view that giving a prescribed weight is redundant given the weight of the updated power engines and the series of crash tests that a car needs to pass in order to compete in F1.
“That has been discussed quite a few times, whether we need the weight limit,” Tombazis said.
“We believe that to get rid of it completely would be creating a never-ending battle of reducing weight and that could have some unforeseen circumstances.
“So what we’re putting, for 2026, is likely to be a weight limit which, afterwards, will not change. We will not be succumbing to this continuous little, sort of, haggling for a couple of kilos – I guess you’ve added this electrical box, let’s add two kilos; the tyres are a bit heavier, let’s add another kilo, something like that.
“We won’t be doing that.
“I think there could be some teams that are a bit overweight in ’26, so close to [unrestricted] but not make it completely free.”
Historical trivia- How did Mercedes become the Silver Arrows?
It is worth noting that back in the 1930s before the formal introduction of F1, the maximum weight in place was 900 kg for competitive single-seater racing.
In 1933, this was reduced to 750 kg. To meet this limit, Mercedes reportedly got rid of the paint from its white (the national racing colour of Germany) W25s to meet the regulations and came to be known as the ‘Silver Arrows’.