Mercedes’s challenger for the 2025 season, the W16, has finally broken cover ahead of Formula 1 testing in Bahrain.
The team will be hopeful that the car is an improvement on their 2024 car, after producing its most competitive season yet during F1’s current ground effect era.
Three seasons of headaches trying to design a car that had the right balance for drivers finally yielded four wins, although Mercedes still finished a distant fourth in the Constructors’ Championship.
Mercedes is now dealing with the departure of Lewis Hamilton to Ferrari, however, it has a bright talent on the books in the form of Andrea Kimi Antonelli who was fast-tracked through the junior formula ranks by Toto Wolff.
This makes George Russell their team leader, who will be keen to improve on his two race wins from last season by challenging rivals Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren.
Technical director James Allison has detailed the main changes that have been implemented to make them more competitive in 2025 ahead of F1 pre-season testing.
Mercedes focused on improving ‘slight reluctance’ of W15 with 2025 challenger
Like every other team on the grid, Mercedes also launched their 2025 livery at the recent F1 75 event in London. That was on their 2024 challenger and now their W16 has finally broken cover, ahead of a filming day run at Bahrain and F1 pre-season testing.
Mercedes has struggled in recent years to keep up with the front runners, largely due to the dramatic performance swings that their car experiences on race weekends. Allison says the W16 has been designed specifically to address those problems.
“Being the fourth year of these regulations on the chassis side, the cars are in the more mature phase. 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,” explains Allison.
“Our primary focus has been on dialling out the W15’s slight reluctance to turn in slow corners, along with the imbalance in tyre temperatures that made the car inconsistent from session to session.”
Ferrari copies part of Mercedes car after Lewis Hamilton split
Ferrari also unveiled their 2025 challenger at Fiorano in the immediate aftermath of the glorified livery launch, and there was one part that caught the eye of F1 technical experts.
The rear wing of the Ferrari SF-25 is reportedly ‘reminiscent’ of what was seen on the Mercedes last year, with its slightly more tapered edges.
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It is unknown if Hamilton was responsible for telling the team to design their rear wing like that, although Ferrari has decided to change its front suspension to make it more like Red Bull and McLaren’s.
Both teams will be running their cars in pre-season testing which takes place at the Bahrain International Circuit for three days between February 26 and 28.
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