Aston Martin F1 Seek Performance Gain By Scraping Paint Off Overweight AMR22

Aston Martin is gearing up for the second race of the season at Jeddah after their poor performance at Bahrain Grand Prix. The English constructors have a lot to deal with ahead, but the most important one was the 2022 challenger’s weight.

Another issue that Aston Martin, and the other F1 teams, are facing at the moment is the F1 car’s weight. The 2022 challengers are heavier in comparison to last year’s one-seaters. The reason for the heavyweight is the new rules and regulations introduced this season. The same rules initially allowed a car to have a minimum weight of 795 kg. However, most of the F1 teams, except for Alfa Romeo, were facing problems with overweight cars.

Every team was doing their best and coming up with unique ideas to cut the weight off from their car. But the task looks hard to achieve. Hence, teams eventually asked FIA to increase the minimum weight by 10 to 25 kgs. After the pre-season tests, FIA increased the weight by three kilograms, making it 798 kgs. But since that wasn’t enough for Aston Martin, they now have decided to scrap the pain from some areas to reduce the car’s weight.

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Aston Martin’s chief technical officer Andy Green has reported to Motorsport.com, “Weight is a big, big issue. These cars are heavy by regulation, and to get down to the regulation weight, it’s a challenge. We went through the whole car from front to back, and we took paint off wherever we could. I think in total we saved about 350 grams.”

Aston Martin will wait for Vettel in Jeddah

The English constructors didn’t have a decent start this season. However, they had run into problems even before the first race. Their experienced driver, Sebastian Vettel, was tested positive for COVID-19 just before the race weekend in Bahrain. So, the four-time world champion had to miss out on the season opened. Aston Martin had to call up their reserve driver, Nico Hulkenberg, to take Seb’s place until he’s fit to drive again. But Hulkenberg couldn’t bring a great result for the team as he finished 17th.

Aston Martin is eagerly waiting for Vettel to return for the Saudi Arabian GP. But the German still hasn’t got his reports which test him negative for COVID-19. Now, the Silverstone base will wait for their ace driver until Friday. If he fails to produce a negative report for COVID-19, then Nico Hulkenberg would be there to fill the shoes of the four-time world champion once again.

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Let’s see if Sebastian Vettel returns for the Saudi Arabian GP and wins some points for his team or if Aston Martin has to stick with Hulkenberg for one more race.