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Alpine hopes to have its Formula 1 car down to the minimum weight by the end of May as it works towards being “easily underweight” in the middle of the year, according to chief technical officer Pat Fry.
All 10 F1 teams have struggled to get down to what is now called the minimum mass level for car and driver in the new regulations, with the rules changed on the eve of the season to add an extra 3kg, taking the the figure to 798kg.
Alfa Romeo is widely regarded as being in the best shape in terms of weight, with multiple teams, including Red Bull, now pushing hard to reduce the car weight.
Fry indicated that he expects Alpine to get down to the weight at the Spanish or Monaco Grands Prix, which are the sixth and seventh races of the season and held over the final two weekends of May.
“I would hope race five or six,” said Fry when asked about the timeline for getting down to the minimum weight limit by The Race.
“It’s quite a challenge. And as we run over kerbs [at the previous race in Jeddah], we’re making things stiffer and heavier to try and survive. That’s the battle you fight.
“Normally, we have a car that puts on five kilos in the first half of the season and you try to make it live reliably.
“We’ve just got to keep working at it. Hopefully, by mid-season we’ll easily be underweight.”
F1 teams aim for their actual car weight to be below the regulatory minimum so they have flexibility in how they then use ballast to get back up to the required figure.
Fry confirmed Alpine has upgrades planned for the upcoming races, although these are based on the development work done before seeing the designs rivals have come up with.
While downforce gains will improve the car’s pace, so too will weight reductions given every 10kg costs 0.3-0.4s per lap depending on the circuit configuration.
“We need to do both [bring down weight and performance], as clearly there’s laptime in everything,” said Fry.
“We’ve got some upgrades coming along over the next two or three races, all of which are based on knowledge before seeing everyone run.
“Then, obviously, there’s a load more coming through as everyone’s going, ‘Oh that’s interesting’ [and evaluating ideas seen on others cars].
“As we do those, we’ll also try to claw back [weight]. We’re not that far over, but you want to be a couple of kilos under if you can.”
Fry said Alpine designed its car knowing it would likely start the season overweight as that was an acceptable tradeoff to achieve the maximum performance level.
Alpine is among the teams that opted not to run the floor stays that were made legal on the eve of the season to prevent the floor flexing.
This is because it used weight to ensure the strength and stability of its floors.
“We designed our car for maximum performance, accepting that it was going to be slightly heavy and slightly overweight,” said Fry.
“And we put a lot of stiffness in the floor and our wide top body also allows you a stiffer installation and that’s helped us out.
“It was a bit of a cop out when a stay was added, so that was a bit frustrating. We haven’t put it on because we’re already stiff enough. I expect that’s helped other people out massively.
“So that’s all part of the game. We just have to take it on the chin and design around it for the next upgrade. You can make a lighter car, but we’ve already spent the weight.”
