Mercedes Technical Director James Allison has called for a reduction in Formula 1's minimum weight limit, with the current generation of cars comfortably the heaviest in the sport's history. In 2008, F1's minimum weight limit stood at 585kg. However, a raft of regulation changes since then – including a ban on mid-race refuelling and the introduction of the complex V6 turbo-hybrid power units – have seen F1 cars gradually become larger and heavier, with the current limit now a hefty 798kg. The size and bulk of the current generation of F1 cars have contributed to making overtaking nearly impossible at circuits such as Monaco, and both F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali and FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem have expressed a desire to see lighter cars for F1's next scheduled regulation change in 2026. "I strongly agree with Stefano, and 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," Allison told media, including RacingNews365.com . "Year-on-year, [the cars] were getting heavier. It isn't super trivial to get the weight moving in the other direction. It is particularly tricky to dream up technical rules that are going to make the car much lighter."
Allison: Make it our problem!
Allison added that the easiest way to produce a lighter grid would be to lower the weight limit, placing the onus on individual teams to find ways of making their cars lighter. "The way to make it lighter is to lower the weight limit and make it our problem," he explained. "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's the most guaranteed way to put downward pressure on the weight of the car."
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