'Red Bull Racing's RB18 too heavy, McLaren and Alfa exactly on weight'

Red Bull Racing appears to have an overweight car for the 2022 season. The RB18 is much heavier than the minimum weight and so Red Bull is trying to adjust the rules slightly, but not all teams agree.

Heavy F1 cars

Formula 1 cars are getting heavier and heavier every year. In order to comply with all regulations, there must be all kinds of fixed parts in and on the chassis. This ensures that the minimum weight of an F1 car for the 2022 season has already risen to 795 kilograms.

Teams naturally want to be as close to that lower limit as possible. The heavier the car, the slower it goes. However, few teams have managed to get the car close to the minimum. According to Auto, Motor und Sport, Alfa Romeo with the C42 is the only one exactly right and McLaren with the MCL36 is not far off.

Red Bull wants higher lower limit

According to the German medium, several teams are far from the lower limit and there is talk of raising it. Red Bull, for example, is complaining about the low mimimum weight. The Austrian team is said to be far from the lower limit with the RB18 and therefore also from the competition in terms of weight. On this, therefore, the team is losing ground.

The teams that are far from the limit point towards the budget cap. According to those teams, it is not possible to build such a light car with the parts that are already required on it. That argument is dismissed by McLaren and Alfa, however, since they have managed to do it.

The FIA could raise the lower limit of 795 kilograms, but would need eight teams to vote for the plan. So with McLaren and Alfa Romeo right on the border, that doesn't seem like a feasible plan or all the other teams would have to vote in favour. So for Red Bull and the other teams, it is a matter of dropping the weight of the car. Whether that will work for Bahrain remains to be seen.