F1 | Mercedes is too heavy: “We are working to find balance”

The defeat suffered by Mercedes in Australian Grand Prix immediately set off some alarm bells for the German team: in addition to the problems related to the tyres, which Lewis has complained about several times Hamilton via the teams radio during the GP, now the Stuttgart team has another problem. As reported by Auto Motor Und Sport, in fact, the Mercedes would be too heavy. Specifically the W08-Hybrid weighs 5 kilos more than the 728 kg set by the regulation as minimum weight for a car of Formula 1.

Toto wolffIn fact, he declared that one of the projects the team is working on urgently is a decrease in the mass of the W08, 5kg above the minimum. The 728 kg minimum weight established by FIA were considered quite generous, also considering the almost 10 kg expected for the installation of theHalo which, however, will only be inserted in 2018. So these 5 excess kilos actually also include those 10 kilos inserted as a tolerance but in reality not used precisely due to the lack of the Halo on the cars. So, in the end, almost 15 kilos total.

Toto Wolff confirmed the work to Brackley: “I don't want to go into too much detail, but this is an area where we need to improve. With the new rules and the larger dimensions of the cars, it is necessary to find a balance in developments that takes weight into account. And this is an ongoing exercise that we are already doing."

Fabiola Granier