Mercedes top man James Allison has a solution to Max Verstappen’s recent doubt over significant weight reduction of the F1 cars. The technical director of Silver Arrows believes that lowering the weight limit will help the engineers make the car lighter.
With the advancement of technology in Formula 1, the weight of the new generation challengers has increased significantly. To elaborate in detail, with the new hybrid engines and safety measures, the weight has increased by a couple of hundred from its early days.
The weight of the new challengers has been set to 1529 pounds (798 kilograms). But, there are talks recently on weight reduction, with FIA and F1 chiefs Mohammed Ben Sulayem and Stefano Domenicali all opening up on it.
Despite the talks, Verstappen, who’s also an enjoyer of lighter cars, is in confusion if the governing body is heading to the right direction as the 2026 regulations will have even heavier battery. In spite of everything, Allison believes he has a solution to the problem.
Allison has a remedy for Verstappen
Earlier, the defending champion stated that it is unrealistic for the sport to make future cars lighter to incorporate their plans to reduce weight after criticizing the dominant RB-19.
However, the Mercedes engineer doesn’t believe it’s an unrealistic task. He has a solution to the problem rather, as he recently opened up about it.
Talking about this, he stated in a report published by GrandPX.news, “The way to make them 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,” further asserted the British engineer.
Increased weight and it’s the issue
Every time a new regulation is set out, the teams struggle to comply with the weight limit of their challengers. And at times, they fail to do so, and that’s when they take innovative measures to deal with the issue.
For example, Williams ran their FW45 without sponsorships stickers this year, which reduced their weight fairly and kept them within the limit. Moreover, the team that’s known as Silver Arrows shifted from their recognizable Silver color to black.
Interestingly, this was not done to support Black Lives Matter this time but to reduce the weight of their W14. As the talks to reduce the weight are on, there are chances that the regulations might be expected to be relaxed to some extent.
All in all, the reduction in weight might improve the drivers’ experience as lighter cars are much faster and more agile. As Verstappen has already said that the new generation of cars takes away a bit of magic, it’ll be interesting to see how the lighter cars help the Dutchman once they’re on track.
