As Formula 1 teams slowly start introducing upgrades to their race cars in 2025, fans have pointed out that one team in particular seems to be avoiding them: Mercedes.

However, the team’s technical director, James Allison, has set the record straight: Mercedes is bringing upgrades. They’re just not as “sexy” as some of those from other teams.

Mercedes clears the air on W16 upgrades

The Miami Grand Prix has become something of a key point in the F1 season when it comes to upgrades. The last race before the Formula 1 circus returns to Europe, many teams are keen to introduce their first major tweaks in the hopes of discovering some pace.

In 2024, it was McLaren’s Miami upgrade package that completely transformed the scope of the title battle. In 2025, no team has arrived with quite as substantial an update yet — but Mercedes fans have noted that the W16 seems to have been exempt from any tweaks.

Even though Mercedes is currently sitting second in the World Constructors’ Championship, it’s over 100 points in arrears of leader McLaren, and fans want to know when they can expect a change of fortune.

But according to James Allison, the team’s technical director, the W16 has faced a few upgrades — they’re just not particularly “sexy.”

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Allison was asked why the team hadn’t provided any upgrades in Mercedes’ post-Miami debrief, and he set the record straight.

“We have actually been bringing upgrades,” he said.

“They’re not particularly enormous or sexy, but they’ve been coming in a steady trickle. There’s some that will be more obvious to the outside world in the next handful of races.

“With a bit of luck, they’ll improve our fortunes.”

As far as minor upgrades go, Allison is referring to changes so small that they aren’t officially noted in FIA documentation — such as lightening certain car components or tweaking the rear wing ever so slightly.

But with the first six races pelting the F1 paddock in rapid succession — all of them far from home — it hasn’t been easy to prepare a more substantial update.

Allison explained, “We’re a quarter of the way through the season already. It’s been coming at the teams hard and fast.

“It’s quite difficult to get upgrades to the car when the races are coming at you in this sort of fashion.

“Hopefully, the ones that happen in the next two or three races will move the dial a bit for us.

“We will also continue to try to work on the tyre temperature in the races, that will also improve our fortunes.”

Back in April, Mercedes hinted that its first major upgrade package will arrive at Imola, which is the next race on the calendar and the first race of a triple header that will carry us back to North America for the Canadian Grand Prix in June.

As we move into that phase of the season, Allison is confident the Mercedes W16 will better find its footing.

“Because we’ve been pretty strong in qualifying for the first several races, I think we can expect to have an OK shout of getting the car reasonably well up the grid in qualifying,” he said.

“With a bit of luck, the upgrades might make that a bit better still.

“But the main thing we’ll be focusing on is trying to get that race pace under control, trying to make sure that we deliver on the promise of our Saturdays on the Sunday.

“The majority of that will be about controlling the temperature of those tyres and making sure the car can therefore use the pace that’s in it.”

In other words: Mercedes has been steadily making changes, but the best is yet to come.

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