Minimum weight of a Formula 1 car has been increased for the extra weight of wider tyres with the prior increase due to wider car brings the total increase in the minimum weight for 26 kilograms.
Last year’s cars had to weigh at least 702 kg with driver, without fuel and with dry weather tyres, but due to wider cars minimum weight at first increased to 722 kg. But the FIA increased the total weight by another 6 kg.
The difference in weight between the the 2016 and 2017 tyres is slightly more than five kilograms which FIA rounded up to six kilograms and has added them to the aforementioned figure of 722 kg for an aggregate minimum weight of 728 kilograms.
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Set of 2017. front tires is about 2 kg heavier than the previous generation, while the rear tyres are slightly more than 3 kg heavier than in 2016.
Increased minimum weight affected the minimum weight of the front and rear axle. Before these changes, the 2017 cars had to weigh at least 328 kg on the front axle and 387 kg on the rear axle, and now these figures are increased by 3 kilograms on each axle due to the extra weight of 6 kilograms.
Weight on the front axle now should not be less than 331 kg, and on the rear axle should not be less than 390 kg. When we sum up the two weights, we see that the teams have only 7 kilograms of freedom to adjust weight distribution (about 1%), as well as before the most recent changes.
For example, the weight may be distributed from 331 kg on front and 397 kg on the rear axle (maximum weight on rear axle, 45.47 : 54.53%) up to 338 kg at the front and 390 kg on the rear axle (maximum weight on front axle, 46.43 : 53.57%).
In addition to increasing the minimum weight, cars may carry additional 5 kilograms of fuel for the race because more aerodynamic drag uses more fuel. Until now, the limit was 100 kg, and from 2017 is 105 kg. The maximum fuel flow rate is still 100 kg/h.
