Formula 1 News: Teams struggling with overweight 2026 cars

As the clock ticked into late December 2025, the Formula 1 paddock was abuzz with a familiar yet intensified challenge: weight. Just weeks before the first pre-season tests in Barcelona, Spanish commentator and F1 insider José M. Zapico dropped a bombshell, claiming that all 11 teams – including the new Cadillac entry – were significantly overweight on their 2026 cars.

–by Mark Cipolloni–

The target minimum weight, set at around 768-770kg (down 30kg from the 2025 limit of 800kg), was proving “brutally difficult” to achieve, with some designs reportedly 15kg or more over the limit.

This wasn’t news to those deep in the factories. For months, team principals and engineers had been sounding alarms. Red Bull’s Christian Horner, back in May 2025, described the weight reduction as an “enormous challenge,” jokingly calling the target “plucked out of the air” amid heavier batteries required for the new hybrid power units.

Williams boss James Vowles went further in 2024, predicting that no team would hit the limit at the season start – echoing the chaos of 2022 when ground-effect cars debuted overweight, shuffling the early competitive order.

The root of the struggle lay in the 2026 regulations themselves. Designed to make cars nimbler and more sustainable, the rules mandated smaller dimensions – a 200mm shorter wheelbase, 100mm narrower track – and a near 50/50 split between internal combustion and electric power, running on 100% sustainable fuels. While narrower tires and flatter floors promised savings, the increased electrical deployment (350kW from the MGU-K, up from 120kW) demanded larger, heavier batteries that offset much of those gains.

FIA single-seater director Nikolas Tombazis had long insisted the target was achievable, refusing to budge on “haggling” for extra kilos as in past cycles. Yet by December 2025, even optimistic simulations suggested compromises: teams debating flexible floors for marginal savings or accepting excess mass that could cost 0.3-0.4 seconds per lap per 10kg.

As factories burned midnight oil ahead of the January shakedowns, the consensus was clear – the 2026 grid would launch overweight, turning the opening races into a scramble. The team closest to the limit would gain a crucial edge, much like Alfa Romeo’s early advantage in 2022 before rivals caught up. In a season promising active aerodynamics, overtaking boosts, and six power unit manufacturers, weight – that oldest of F1 battles – threatened to define the hierarchy once again.