Mercedes and Red Bull are struggling to reduce the weight of their car, according to the former’s team principal Toto Wolff.
Mercedes’ W13 seems to have a lot of issues they need to address as the season progresses. They weren’t the strongest in pre-season testing, and had an underwhelming Bahrain GP.
Lewis Hamilton did manage a last grasp third place finish, but that was more due to Red Bull’s misfortunes. His teammate George Russell followed suit with a P4 finish on his Mercedes debut.
‘I know we got this.’ ✊
– @LewisHamilton pic.twitter.com/WAmqeBVTwh
— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) March 21, 2022
Red Bull on the other hand looked relatively stronger. While their pace wasn’t quite as much as Ferrari’s, Max Verstappen did manage to start the race on the front row. He was on course for a second place finish before an engine issue forced him to retire. His teammate Sergio Perez too, faced the same outcome.
Ahead of the Saudi Arabian GP, Wolff spoke about the performance of the W13. In addition to other issues, the Austrian feels that they need to reduce their car’s weight limit.
Also read: Former F1 driver Gerhard Berger does not see a way forward for Aston Martin with Mike Krack
Red Bull have similar car weight issues as Mercedes, insists Wolff
The limit was originally 795kgs, which was later increased to 798kgs. This was because teams struggled to keep the car within the limit. Nevertheless, the Silver Arrows are still struggling with the same.
Wolff went on to say that Red Bull along with themselves, have the two most overweight cars on the grid. The 50-year old plans to work on this problem gradually, as the season progresses.
“Where we stand is that, if I make a best case, then probably Red Bull and ourselves are, from the top 10 cars, the most overweight,” said Toto Wolff.
#AMuS Red Bull belongs to the teams that are clearly above the limit. An attempt to raise the current minimum weight has failed in Barcelona, 8 out of 10 teams would have to agree + the FIA and the F1 management. Let‘s see if an agreement can be reached before the first race…
— tami. (@Vetteleclerc) February 28, 2022
“Then there are some who are underweight, or just above it. That’s quite a lap time advantage, or disadvantage, but we can be clever about it. Some have taken the decision to go live and are benefitting from that at the moment.
“I think there’s, for us, definitely room to improve, and to chip away some of the bits that we have on the car that are too heavy,” he added.
