Extra ‘weight’

FORMULA One teams seeking to go faster have been stripping paint from the cars they revealed with pride before the season started.

McLaren, Aston Martin and Williams were among those at last weekend’s Emilia Romagna Grand Prix in Imola with notable expanses of raw, black carbon fibre replacing previously liveried areas.

New rules for 2022, with the introduction of larger wheels have left some struggling to get down to a new minimum weight limit of 798kg. Every excess 10kg translates into about 0.3 seconds of lost time per lap.

The paint on a F1 car weighs around 6kg, according to Alfa Romeo team manager Beat Zehnder.