Photo: Williams F1 Team / Twitter
With some Formula 1 teams struggling to hit the current 798 kg (1,759 lbs) weight limit, one solution that’s already been adopted by the likes of Aston Martin and McLaren has been to strip away paint from their cars, leaving them with more exposed carbon fiber elements.
Aston Martin revealed that they’ve managed to save around 350 grams by removing some of that green paint, whereas McLaren removed some of its orange paint from its airbox for the first race of the season, as reported by Motorsport.
With that in mind, we can now confirm that Williams have joined this group of teams that are running large areas of their cars in raw carbon fiber. The British outfit stripped down various painted areas around the sidepods and airbox, which were previously painted in dark blue and gloss black.
When the livery for the FW44 was first introduced back in February, you couldn’t see any exposed carbon fiber, apart from the floor. Well, the car that raced in Australia two weeks ago looked quite different, especially when viewed from the side.
“You’d always like the car to be lighter and I don’t know how obvious it is, but the paint scheme is different,” said Williams’ head of vehicle performance, Dave Robson. “That is in part about lowering the weight of the paint on the car.”
“I don’t know where we fit in the overweight category up and down [the] pitlane, it’s very hard to know, but it is absolutely a challenge on these cars to get them below the weight. It’s something else we can continue to work on.”
This tiny little weight saving measure may have paid off in Melbourne, where Williams managed to score its first point of the season thanks to Alex Albon’s P10 finish.
According to Robson, the main thing that’s holding his team back right now is balance – in terms of ride height, general setup and of course, porpoising.
With that in mind, we can now confirm that Williams have joined this group of teams that are running large areas of their cars in raw carbon fiber. The British outfit stripped down various painted areas around the sidepods and airbox, which were previously painted in dark blue and gloss black.
When the livery for the FW44 was first introduced back in February, you couldn’t see any exposed carbon fiber, apart from the floor. Well, the car that raced in Australia two weeks ago looked quite different, especially when viewed from the side.
“You’d always like the car to be lighter and I don’t know how obvious it is, but the paint scheme is different,” said Williams’ head of vehicle performance, Dave Robson. “That is in part about lowering the weight of the paint on the car.”
“I don’t know where we fit in the overweight category up and down [the] pitlane, it’s very hard to know, but it is absolutely a challenge on these cars to get them below the weight. It’s something else we can continue to work on.”
This tiny little weight saving measure may have paid off in Melbourne, where Williams managed to score its first point of the season thanks to Alex Albon’s P10 finish.
According to Robson, the main thing that’s holding his team back right now is balance – in terms of ride height, general setup and of course, porpoising.
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