'Plucked out of the air' - new complaints over expensive 2026 F1 rule
F1 teams are facing another major headache with the complicated 2026 regulations, as it's now expected they will struggle to hit the minimum weight limit
Formula 1 teams are facing another major headache with the complicated 2026 regulations, as it is now expected they will struggle to hit the minimum weight limit.
That has opened the door for the opening stages of the season with the all-new cars to perhaps be dictated by who has managed to get closest to the minimum weight limit. It's understood some teams are currently well off the target.
One of the aims of the all-new 2026 car regulations has been to create more nimble cars, amid concerns that the mass of the current generation of machinery is too high.
With the 2025 cars weighing a record 800kg, the 2026 cars' minimum weight has been aggressively cut.
This is based on the regulations' definition of the car weighing 726kg plus the estimated 46.4kg accounted for tyres for qualifying (772.4kg), and 724kg plus tyres for all other sessions.
This means that F1's 2026 cars are estimated to be 28kg lighter than the current cars in qualifying trim.
However, as teams have begun to work on developing their 2026 challengers, which include heavier batteries, they have quickly realised that getting anywhere near that target is going to be a huge challenge.
Haas boss Ayao Komatsu, whose team is right at the limit with the current rules, said: "At the moment it's quite bad. It's challenging."
Red Bull boss Christian Horner half-joked that the minimum weight target for 2026 had been pretty much randomly chosen, as he reckoned that only a huge expense would allow anyone to get close to it.
"A number was plucked out of the air for car weight," he said. "We've got engines that are significantly heavier and a car weight that has become lower. So it will be an enormous challenge for every team to achieve it.
"Saving weight costs a colossal amount of money. There was a discussion last week about introducing steel skids [to reduce sparks] - and maybe that would warrant adding 5kg to the minimum weight! But it is what it is.
"It's the same for everybody. There will be choices teams make to hit the weight, because weight is free laptime. Every 10kg is about 0.35 seconds. It will be very challenging for all teams to get down to minimum weight."
There are suggestions that some teams' early projections put them somewhere between 10kg and 20kg over which, with a variation of around 0.6s if squads are at the upper end of that compared to a car bang on the weight limit, could have huge implications on the competitive order.
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff reckoned there could be big decisions to be made by teams about whether to focus on weight or aero development.
"You make choices as a team," he said. "How much laptime do you attribute to weight and ballast? Where do you want to save?
"You may compromise other performance parts if you want to reduce your weight, or the opposite. It is challenging.
"The reason we're doing it is to make the cars nimbler. Is that something that was important? I think it was. We've got to start somewhere. That initial step is difficult, but it's the same for everyone."
Red Bull chief engineer Paul Monaghan said that every effort would be made to get somewhere close to the limit - and it was all about doing a better job than the opposition.
"It's a relative scale," he explained. "We might be overweight by x-kg. If everybody else is x-plus it doesn't matter does it?
"It's a massive challenge to get this car down to the weight limit for '26, yes. Everybody will strive. And it's the design choices we make over the coming weeks and months that are really going to influence it.
"The homologation tests have got a bit more strenuous, adding weight. The chassis laminate will maybe save us a little bit here and there. It's going to be nip and tuck everywhere.
"If we can get 5% off every component - crudely put - it's 5% off the car. Suddenly 5% is a big number, isn't it?
"It's going to be expensive engineering to get the weight out of it. So we'll try. We'll have a go."
Komatsu was certain that weight will have an impact on the competitive order next year, but he hoped there is not one factor that decides everything.
"Weight for sure will be a performance differentiator, and it's very expensive development as well," he explained.
"There are big performance differentiators everywhere - like weight, aero and power unit - but as long as they are balanced then I think that is OK.
"But if we go to race one and the PU is a 90% dominant factor then that's not good. I hope these performance differentiators all get a role to play."
