Mercedes has introduced significant overhauls to its W16 Formula 1 race car for 2025 as it attempts to solve long-time problems that have hindered its performance in the last couple of years. Mercedes technical director James Allison detailed the upgrades, marking a new aerodynamic approach along with structural improvements. British motorsports racing driver George Russell and new teammate Kimi Antonelli will also get their first taste of the W16 for on a filming day in Bahrain, giving a glimpse of the car's on-track performance.

Mercedes' plan behind W16 redesign

Ever since ground-effect rules were introduced in 2022, Mercedes has not been able to deliver consistent performance. The W13 experienced severe porpoising, and the W14 suffered from rear-end instability. Even after a conceptual change in 2024, the W15 showed unpredictable performance, even though it managed to win four races.

In a bid to address these contradictions, Mercedes has redesigned "every aerodynamic surface" of the W16. The vehicle boasts a reworked front suspension and other under-the-hood tweaks to make it more stable and responsive.

Fixing old flaws for 2025

James Allison highlighted the team's efforts to address the W15's reluctance to turn in slow corners and its inconsistent tyre temperature balance, which created unpredictable performance.

“Being the fourth year of these regulations on the chassis side, the cars are in the more mature phase,” Allison said. “Big gains in lap time are harder to come by but we’ve been concentrating on making improvements in the areas that held us back last year."

With no major power unit changes allowed before the 2026 regulation overhaul, Mercedes has also fine-tuned the reliability aspects of its engine. Power unit chief Hywel Thomas highlighted efforts to maximize performance efficiency.

“We have been looking at reliability updates, and some calibration upgrades, to deliver robustness, squeeze the last little bits of performance out of the Power Unit and give ourselves the best opportunity this season,” Thomas added. “We’ve made good progress and hopefully that can add performance on track.”

George Russell hopeful about Mercedes' 2025 campaign

George Russell, taking on the role of team leader from Lewis Hamilton who joined Ferrari, was confident of the team strategy for 2025. In an interview during the F1 season launch ceremony, Russell gave assurances that Mercedes has learned to follow a disciplined development policy not to fall into the trap of repeating history. The British driver did admit the difficulty of estimating Mercedes' standing vis-à-vis its competitors but is optimistic over their progress.

“I think it’s going to be a significant change this year, to be honest,” Russell clarified, “We’ve probably been a lot more disciplined with every change we’ve made. We’ve been more thorough than ever in terms of the simulator running, just to ensure that we’re not going to fall into a new trap. And so far it’s a reasonable step. Obviously, you have no idea what everyone else is doing and it’s going to be quite an interesting season with how people deploy the resource between 2025 and 2026.”>