While much of the discourse surrounding the 2025 Spanish Grand Prix has centered on Max Verstappen’s restart after a safety car period, far less attention has been paid to the cause of that safety car: A Mercedes power unit failure.

James Allison, the team’s technical director, admitted that while the situation isn’t ideal, it doesn’t spell the end of Mercedes’ 2025 hopes. In fact, he remains optimistic for what’s to come.

Why there’s still optimism for 2025 within Mercedes

The Spanish Grand Prix at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya seemed to be going off without a hitch until Lap 54, when Kimi Antonelli’s Mercedes W16 appeared to lose power and come to rest in a gravel trap.

It was to prove a pivotal moment of the race. A safety car period was necessary to recover Antonelli’s car, during which time the whole field pitted – including Max Verstappen, who was paying his fourth visit to the pit box.

His Red Bull team had outfitted him with the tyres they had remaining, hards, and Verstappen seemed to lose his temper on the restart, colliding with both Charles Leclerc and George Russell.

The plight of poor Antonelli got lost in the ensuing fracas, but it brought to a close a points-less triple header for the Italian rookie — the longest points-free streak for any Mercedes driver since 2013, when Nico Rosberg finally brought an end to a seven-race drought.

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In Mercedes’ post-Spain debrief, the team’s technical director James Allison was asked to shed some light on the team’s mood.

“Mixed, I’d say,” he admitted. “A little reflective.

“I guess from Barcelona, there were aspects of the way we approached the weekend, of the performance of the car in very hot track conditions that give us some optimism for the future.

“But we’re all pretty stung by the DNFs and having been through a triple header where we didn’t score at anything like the rate we did in the opening races of the year.”

At the moment, Mercedes sits third in the World Constructors’ Championship standings with 159 points, usurped by the struggling Ferrari after Barcelona.

Neither Antonelli nor Russell scored points in Monaco despite finishing the Grand Prix. Antonelli then retired from Imola and Barcelona with mechanical failures, leaving Russell the sole Mercedes representative scooping up points.

The intensely frustrating triple header also ended with a power unit failure for Antonelli, which left him beached in a gravel trap trackside at Barcelona.

“We don’t know what let go in the PU yet,” Allison admitted.

“It’s made its way back to Brixworth. They’ll dismantle it, figure out what’s let go, work out what they need to do as recommendations for the whole pool of race engines, not just in our team, but also in their customer teams as well.

“And hopefully, we won’t see any repeat of it in the remainder of the season.”

Naturally, Antonelli’s PU issue has raised concerns about PU allocation. Each car is allowed a certain number of component changes before being penalized — but according to Allison, they’re still well within their allocation, even if they’ll have to dip into it earlier than expected.

“Well, it puts some pressure on the pool,” he confessed.

However, he also noted that “we could put in a new power unit next race weekend, suffer no penalties, because we’re still below the maximum number you’re allowed to use in a year without penalty.

“But, of course, we’re only a third of the way through the year, and so… well a bit more. And so, that’s going to put quite a strain on the remainder of the pool if we have to eke it out till the end of the year.

“So, we’ll be just eyeballing up how to marshal those remaining resources in a good way.

“But, yes, it’s obviously no fun when a power unit comes out of the pool before delivering its full life.”

Of particular frustration for the factory Mercedes effort must be the fact that one of its customer teams — McLaren — has had no similar faults.

Still, Allison remains optimistic. The Mercedes W16 is proving to be a relatively reliable machine, allowing George Russell to keep his finger on the pulse of the championship battle raging between Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris.

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