James Allison, Mercedes technical director, insists that the authorities shall leave the Formula 1 car weight to the respective teams.
Earlier, F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali and FIA presidnet Mohammed Ben Sulayem revealed their plan to impose restrictions on car weights. They intend to bring the restriction in 2026 regulation cycle.
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Currently, the minimum F1 car weight is around 798kg which is the maximum that there has been in history of the world championship.
The F1 will have larger batteries in 2026, which will further increase the weight. Therefore, the efforts are in process to cater the weight issues in-order to further the contribution of electric power.
Over the years, car weight has significantly increased after the introduction of hybrid power and safety devices. The continual weight increment has raised the concerns which are currently being addressed to cap the weight.
Allison on Weight Cap
Allison has provided an alternate approach to cap the weight. He weighed in against specific regulations targeting specific areas for weight constraints. Rather, he recommends a maximum cap on the overall car weight. He believes it will automatically helps FIA to achieve the required weight cap from the F1 teams.
Allison expressed his thoughts on the car weight cap and said: “I strongly agree with Stefano. He’s not alone in thinking that this sort of inexorable upward trend in weight is something that has to be arrested and then reversed because year-on-year they have been getting heavier.
“It isn’t super trivial to get the weight moving in the other direction, but it is particularly tricky to dream up technical rules that are going to make the car much lighter.
“The way to make it lighter, I think, is to lower the weight limit and make it our problem. If cars are over the limit, then it forces us all to make some fairly difficult decisions about what we put in our cars and what we don’t.
“Not everyone agrees with that point of view. But that is I think the most guaranteed way to put downward pressure on the weight of the car.”
