Weight limit for F1 drivers from 2025 gives us “the freedom to be athletes” – Motorsport Week

RB's Daniel Ricciardo has stated that increasing the minimum weight limit for drivers by two kilograms for the 2025 Formula 1 season will give him and his fellow competitors “the freedom to be athletes”.

At the Formula 1 Commission meeting last month, the regulations for 2025 were adjusted: the minimum dry weight of the vehicles was increased from 798 kg to a record-breaking 800 kg.

The two-kilo increase particularly affects the weight of the driver, seat and equipment, which must total at least 82 kg in 2025, compared to 80 kg in 2024.

Ricciardo praises this decision and is convinced that it will benefit not only the larger riders in the field, but everyone, as the focus can now be more on strength training than on saving weight.

“[Certain drivers] “It’s not my fault that I’m tall,” said the Australian during the press conference for the Belgian Grand Prix on Thursday.

“That’s why it’s unfair if they have to dehydrate, so to speak, just to reach the weight.

“But 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 weight training…'

“So we now have a bit of freedom in our training and I think that's a big advantage for many of us.”

Carlos Sainz of Ferrari noted: “I had to be careful with my muscle building and nutrition.”

The Spaniard, however, said he had “always been at the limit of this weight”, but, like Ricciardo, expressed no sympathy for the larger drivers in the field.

Nevertheless, Sainz expressed his concerns about the increase in the weight limit and although the 2026 technical regulations will try to combat this through a planned weight reduction, the Ferrari driver warned that small incremental changes could become a bigger problem.

“Two kilos is obviously not a big change,” he said.

“The problem arises when you start adding two kilos to two more, then two more kilos. I think that's been the trend in Formula 1 over the last ten years, always adding two kilos here, three there, five there, and then the cars weigh 800 kilos.”

“It used to be about 600. I guess they're working on '26. At the same time, I think that weight has also made the cars safer because there's a lot of crash protection and a lot of work is put into driver safety. I'll never deny that I want that safety to be as high as possible.

“But I think every driver here will appreciate anything we can do to get the weight back down. We hope the FIA ​​​​and the teams will take that into account when setting future rules, not just those for 2026.”