Following their defeat to Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari at last weekend’s Australian Grand Prix, Mercedes has admitted the weight of the W08 is an area which they plan to work on.
With a new weight limit set at 728kg, it appears Mercedes, as well as other teams, have struggled to build a car within the limit.
While Lewis Hamilton has pointed out the tyre wear on the car is a key issue needing to be resolved, if weight is also an issue, it could be partly contributing to the tyre wear problems.
When Toto Wolff was asked by Motorsport.com if a report from Auto Motor Und Sport was true claiming the W08 was 5kg over the target limit, he denied the rumour.
However, Wolff did explain: “I don’t want to go too much into detail but it’s an area we can definitely improve.”
Drivers are included in the weight limit with all of their race equipment such as the helmet and HANS device, but the team have not asked their drivers to minimise their weight any further.
Due to the nature of the regulations having put more emphasis on aerodynamics and power unit reliability, more parts have been added and some strengthened to cope with the demands of the 2017 season.
Wolff added: “With new regulations and the size of the cars, you need to balance out all the time between performance parts and the weight. And that’s an ongoing exercise which we are doing.”
It is understood Mercedes are not the only team that are suffering from similar problems, with reports Red Bull and Force India are also struggling to match the mandated weight limit.
Force India’s deputy team principal Bob Fernley said: “We’re already okay from a weight point.
“We’re actually underweight but we’re not enough underweight, so by Bahrain we will have enough of a variance there to be able to get the ballast where we want it. It’s only a ballast issue.”
