Mercedes has revealed that the team’s 2025 Formula 1 car will be a “close cousin” of the current W15 amid the impending sizeable regulation change coming in 2026.
The German marque opted to commit to revamping its car concept last winter as it bid to eradicate the recalcitrant characteristics embedded inside its predecessors.
But while it endured a sluggish start as it struggled with balance problems, Mercedes has since initiated a resurgence which has seen it seize three wins in four races.
However, Mercedes Trackside Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin has denied that the side’s recent breakthrough has meant it has become F1’s benchmark package.
Shovlin pointed out that Mercedes being unable to maintain pace with McLaren and Red Bull in Austria and Hungary shows that the W15 is sensitive to hot conditions.
“Well, the main remaining weaknesses – in hot conditions at rear-limited circuits, we’re not as good as the McLarens, or Max [Verstappen’s Red Bull],” Shovlin said.
“We saw that in Budapest, and we saw that in Austria, but our gap on race pace in Budapest was smaller.
“So I think we’ve made progress there over the sequence of these recent races. If you looked at Silverstone, we were competitive.
“So I think the main weakness is that, but then everyone’s trying to develop their cars. If you’re not developing at a faster rate than the others, then you will quite quickly slip backward.
“So there’s always going to be a focus just on how much development you can bring.
“We can only see a month or six weeks into the future because that’s the sort of horizon that you’re working with in your wind tunnel.
“What we don’t know is whether will we be able to keep delivering performance from the wind tunnel, from a vehicle dynamics group, and mechanical design group.
“They’re going to continue to be able to bring performance into the last part of the year, hopefully.
“We’ve got good ideas, but there’s a lot of work to go through between having an idea and actually having physical parts that you can put on the car and make it go quicker.”
An aggressive development plan has been behind Mercedes’ remarkable turnaround, which the side plans to continue in the remaining races with stable rules in 2025.
However, Shovlin has conceded a time will come when the team has to decide whether to implement parts on the current car or shelve them until the W16 is launched.
“We will continue at the factory to find as much performance as we can,” he admitted.
“So that is what you are calling aggressive development, we’re flat-out trying to find performance.
“Later on in the year, there have to be discussions around ‘Is it this car or does it wait for the next car?’
“The cost cap inevitably means that those discussions are a trade between performance gain and cost.
“We do want to be fighting at the front next year. So we’re always going to make decisions that mean that that is a possibility.
“Then, in terms of the wind tunnel, you’ve got the point at which you progressively shift resources from the current car to next year’s car,
I think probably every team has already started working on next year’s car.
“But how rapidly you shift that resource over is a factor but teams may find that what works on this car works on next year’s anyway, or vice versa.
“So it’s not like the challenge we’ll have in 2026, where it’s a completely different beast.”
And while he has admitted that the W15’s successor will be a “close cousin” to the current car, Shovlin has divulged that some crucial areas are still to be determined.
“We haven’t made decisions yet on does the chassis stay the same? Does the gearbox stay the same?” he highlighted.
“The reality is you probably can’t change everything. 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.”
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