Weight Reduction & Ballast Overview

Yes, reducing weight will always be the best course of action, however it's not always the most Performance Point (PP) efficient route to take. Reducing weight heavily increases PP which may not benefit you in terms of overall performance gain. To reduce PP gain, you can purchase the ballast upgrade in the tuning shop.

Weight balance is the percentage of the vehicle weight distributed between the front and the rear axles of a vehicle. For example, front engine front wheel drive (FF) vehicles will have a higher front weight balance compared to rear engine rear wheel drive (RR) vehicles, which will have a higher rear weight balance.

For vehicles that have a high front weight balance, adding more ballast weight  rearwards could be better as it allows for greater corner rotation, as well as decreases PP due to increasing weight. Vehicles that have a high rear weight balance, adding more ballast weight forwards could be better, as it removes the pendulum cornering effect gained from having a high rear weight balance. Mid to corner exit stability would increase by increasing front weight balance as well as decrease PP due to increasing weight.

Moving ballast weight will shift the tyre wear rates. Moving weight forwards will increase front tyre wear. Moving weight rearwards will increase rear tyre wear. This is a very good tool, as getting even tyre wear across all tyres will maximise performance as you will evenly distribute wear between all 4 tyres.

The best use of these settings I've discovered, whilst competing against the top Performance Point (PP) drivers are:

FR, MR and 4WD drivetrains, shifting the weight balance rearwards can greatly increase acceleration as it increases traction over the rear driven wheels. I would also maximise Weight Reduction and maximise Ballast. Maximising the ballast weight will allow or the the biggest vehicle setup window for performance. Placing the increased weight rearwards will greatly increase lap times. From corner apex to exit, speeds will be increased with a further rearwards weight balance because of less mechanical understeer. This is because when cornering, you can rely on the rear of the car rotating as it will act similarly to a pendulum. What the increased weight will do is greatly decrease PP allowing for a higher potential performance ceiling. With increased rear weight distribution you will want to increase rear downforce to be sure that the rearwards weight balance is controllable at high speed. Increase rear downforce will also reduce PP.

There are set percentages of how much weight is reduced with each Weight Reduction Stage according to the vehicle's stock weight. So if a car weights more than 1,750kg (3858lbs) maximum weight percentage reduction will be applied. The total percentage reduction at each weight stage reduces the less the vehicle is at stock weight.

Vehicles that can only apply 3 Weight Reduction Stages, have the same weight reduction potential. However there isn't as much versatility as there is no middle ground of reduction in weight between Stages 1 and 2 or Stages 2 and 3.

There is a specific rule applied to EV vehicles only. These vehicles with stage 5 weight reduction will only have a maximum of ~31.6% of reduced weight. 

Table showing Weight Reduction % at each stage (kg)

Table showing Weight Reduction % at each stage (lbs)