Why F1 teams are braced for battle to hit “very aggressive” 2026 weight limit

Amid all the talk about 2026’s hybrid engines and how they will be deployed, getting to F1’s lower weight limit may well cause teams the biggest headache of all.

The minimum car weight for F1’s new rules era has been set at 768kg, 32kg down on the current limit of 800kg. This has largely been achieved by reducing the size of the cars, with the maximum wheelbase cut by 200mm to 3400mm and the width reduced from 2000m to 1900mm. Pirelli was also tasked with introducing narrower tyres, which will help.

The FIA would like the weight of the cars to go down even more to improve the spectacle, which – alongside costs – is one reason why the championship’s governing body was keen on exploring a simpler engine formula in the future.

For 2026, however, a bigger reliance on electric power will also lead to much heavier batteries. And as several teams have already struggled in previous seasons to get on the weight limit, meeting the FIA’s aggressive targets looks certain to be a headscratcher.

Given every 10kg of additional weight amounts to around three tenths per second on the track, there is a consensus in the paddock that the ability to get close to the weight limit will be a big performance differentiator at the start of the 2026 era.

“A number was plucked out of the air for car weight,” Red Bull team boss Christian Horner said, when asked about the change by Autosport.

“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 – maybe that would warrant adding five kilos 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 lap time. It will be very challenging for all teams to get down to minimum weight.” 

His Mercedes counterpart Toto Wolff agreed the aggressive weight cuts are challenging, but backed the FIA’s move to bring the car weight down.

“Like Christian said, you make choices as a team,” Wolff said. “How much lap time 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 more nimble. 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.”

Alpine technical director David Sanchez also called the 768kg limit “very aggressive,” while Haas chief Ayao Komatsu labelled it “for sure a performance differentiator” and “a very expensive development.”

Red Bull’s chief engineer Paul Monaghan provided more details on how F1’s ambitious weight goal will impact car design.

“It’s a massive challenge to get this car down to weight limit for ’26, yes,” Monaghan said. “The design choices we make over the coming weeks [and] months, are really going to influence it. The homologation tests have gotten a bit more strenuous, adding weight.

2026 Formula 1 rules

Photo by: FIA

“The chassis laminate will maybe save us a little bit here and there, and it’s going to be nip and tuck everywhere. You can get 5% off every component, if you like. 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.”

Asked by Autosport to what extent chassis weight will influence the competitive picture, he replied: “The only way to answer that question will be in March next year, when we’ll see how far overweight everybody is. It’s a relative scale. We might be overweight by X kilos, if everybody else is X plus, it doesn’t matter, does it?”