Ricciardo welcomes ‘freedom’ from strict driver weight limits

RB driver Daniel Ricciardo has welcomed the decision by the sport’s governing body to reduce the pressure on drivers’ weight by introducing changes to the sporting regulations for the 2025 season.

At last month’s Formula 1 Commission meeting, a minor change to next year’s regulations was approved, increasing the cars’ minimum kerb weight from 798kg to 800kg, a championship record.

The 2kg increase applies only to the permitted weight of the driver, seat and equipment and cannot be transferred to other areas of the car. Therefore, teams will not gain anything by requiring drivers to go on a drastic diet before races.

Ricciardo said it was a much-needed change to make it easier for drivers who are naturally taller or bigger and cannot compete with their colleagues who are much shorter and slimmer.

“(Drivers) can’t be short,” Ricciardo said in Belgium. “It’s unfair that they have to dehydrate to make weight.”

At 178cm, Ricciardo is far from the tallest man on the grid. Alex Albon and Esteban Ocon are both 186cm, while George Russell is 185cm. For comparison, Lando Norris is 170cm, and Ricciardo’s RB teammate Yuki Tsunoda is the shortest of them all at 159cm.

In addition to having to follow a strict diet to achieve a minimum weight, drivers were also advised against excessive muscle gain through training, which could have a negative impact on safety in the car.

“Even if we don’t get to that weight, it’s nice that we have the freedom to be the athletes we need to be, and it’s not like, ‘Oh, we have to be careful, we can’t do too much strength training.'”

“The fact that we now have a bit of freedom in terms of training is a big benefit for many of us,” he added.

Other drivers had similar feelings on the matter. “I had to be careful about the amount of muscle you put on and what you ate,” admitted Carlos Sainz at the same F1 press conference at Spa.

But for some, it is just another example of how the weight of an F1 car is constantly increasing as more technical solutions and safety improvements have to be introduced, causing problems for engineers and drivers.

“Of course, two kilograms is not a big change,” said Sainz. “The problem comes when you start adding two kilograms on top of another two, another two, another two, which I think has been the trend in F1 for the last ten years.

“(We) keep adding two kilograms here, three there, five there. In the past, (cars) weighed about 600 kg,” he stressed, meaning that today’s cars are a third heavier than in the recent past.

“I think the weight has made the cars safer because there’s a lot of impact protection in them, and a lot of work has gone into driver safety. I’ll never deny that I want to make that safety as high as possible.

“But I think every driver here will appreciate anything we can do to reduce weight,” Sainz said. “We hope the FIA ​​and the teams will take that into account when deciding on future regulations, not just for 2026.”

Keep up to date with all the latest news from the world of F1 via Facebook AND Twitter