Lewis Hamilton revealed that he was fasting throughout Friday at the Austrian Grand Prix in order to meet the FIA’s driver weight limit. F1 stars are weighed after stepping out of the car on race day while holding their helmets, race suit and shoes. The current F1 weight regulations have been in place since 2019, when the FIA introduced a minimum weight limit of 80kg, which was bumped up to 82kg ahead of the 2025 season.
If a driver clocks in under this reading, additional weight will be added to the car to ensure that there is not an unfair advantage, and the driver will be penalised. While drivers must hit the 82kg limit to ensure compliance with FIA regulations, every kilogram over that limit is a sacrifice of lap time. Therefore, it is in the interest of F1 stars to stick as close to the magic number as possible and avoid carrying excess weight.
Hamilton explained the importance of this ahead of the Austrian GP. “The first thing I do in the morning is weigh myself every day, and my weight this morning… I’m 76 kilos,” he explained to supporters in the fan zone.
“So I can’t eat anything till very much later because when you put the kit on, your suit, boots, helmet, everything weighs like four and a half kilos. And the weight limit is basically 81, is it?”
When Leclerc, who was standing beside him, confirmed that 82kg was the limit, he continued: “Yeah, so I’m on the limit right today. So I’m gonna fast all day and try and get my weight down. Then I can have, for dinner, the pancakes.”
Hamilton’s intense approach to weight control is nothing new. During the 2023 season, the 105-time Grand Prix winner arrived back from the summer break at just under 77kg, putting him seven pounds over his target weight.
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“I ate so much food,” the Brit confessed. “My weight has to be around 73, 74 kilos, and I was almost 77 kilos on Saturday. I was like, ‘Oh, God!’ so I had to go on an extreme diet these past days.”
Hamilton previously explained the importance of driver weight during an appearance on Graham Norton’s show. “Ten kilos of fuel in the car costs three-tenths of a second every circuit, per lap,” he noted. “So if I’m one kilo overweight, I can lose up to two seconds in the race distance. So my weight is very important.”