Mercedes’ 2025 challenger, the W16, will be revealed via an online launch just before official pre-season testing begins.

While all 10 teams will ‘launch’ their F1 2025 seasons at a communal launch event in London in the middle of February, some of the teams will hold back on showcasing their cars in favour of their own launch dates.

Mercedes confirm launch date for W16

Mercedes’ plans for the 2025 pre-season have been outlined by the Brackley-based squad, with the team heading along to the O2 Arena in London on the 18th of February.

This is for the collaborative 10-team launch organised by Formula 1, which is being called the ‘F1 75 Live’ as fans can purchase tickets to see the reveal of the car’s liveries in person.

While some of the teams might bring along their actual 2025 cars for the event, it’s expected that most will hold off on revealing their actual race cars in order to control their own launch date.

To that end, the Mercedes on show at the launch event in London will feature the 2025 livery but won’t be the 2025 design. Instead, the 2025 design will be revealed on the 24th of February as the Mercedes AMG F1 W16 E Performance is showcased to the world.

Photography of the car will be revealed by the team via its own social media channels, with the car then being shaken down via a filming day in Bahrain on the 25th of February.

The W16 is expected to remain prominently black in colour. While the team is colloquially known as the ‘Silver Arrows’, the team opted for a change to a black livery after a push from Lewis Hamilton to do so in order to represent the diversity of the team in terms of underrepresented groups, and team boss Toto Wolff has said this won’t change despite Hamilton’s departure to Ferrari.

“The impact he had on the team in terms of diversity — we have a large part of our population today from underrepresented groups, and it’s going to make us strong, because it’s different cultures, different perceptions and perspectives,” he said.

“He made us kneel when we needed to do it, and he helped us to do the car black and it’s gonna stay black. We’re not bailing out of there.”

As for the technical aspects of the car, Andrew Shovlin hinted that the W16 will be a “close cousin” of the 2024 car as Formula 1 enters the final year of the current regulations.

“The reality is you probably can’t change everything,” he said.

“We’re at a stage now where we’re trying to evaluate those to look for the best return for your spend in the cost cap.

“However, I think, aerodynamically, our car and most people’s cars will be an evolution of what we have today – there’ll be significant changes on there but you won’t want to change the architecture of the car and take a big hit in the wind tunnel that you then have to recover – I don’t think many people will be doing that.”

Towards the end of the 2024 season, Russell said the additional ‘autumn break’ heading into the final races had afforded Mercedes the opportunity to identify some areas to tweak on the car for this season, “We’ve definitely uncovered a few things that we want to be changing going into next year.”

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