Mercedes Technical Director James Allison has explained the changes made to the team’s 2025 Formula 1 car have been carried out to deal with the W15’s inconsistencies.
Despite winning four races last term, split evenly across George Russell and Lewis Hamilton, 2024’s W15 offered up wildly varying levels of performance from session to session and weekend to weekend.
The W15 was plagued by having a very narrow operating window for optimum performance levels, thriving in cooler temperatures but suffering in warmer conditions.
Turn issues also characterised the W15’s numerous pitfalls and speaking amid the unveiling of the 2025 F1 challenger, the W16, Allison expressed that several changes have been made to the architecture of the car to dial out these problems.
“Being the fourth year of these regulations on the chassis side, the cars are in the more mature phase,” Allison began.
“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.
“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.
“That has led to changes to every aerodynamic surface, new front suspension, and further changes under the skin of the W16 to remedy some of the more challenging characteristics of its predecessor.”
Mercedes keen to see how W16 fares against F1 competition
While Allison is hopeful that the changes carried out from the W15 into the W16 have proved fruitful, any gains made by the team will be relative to the competition.
With 2025 being the final year of the current rule cycle, competition will no doubt be fierce and margins tight after an already highly competitive 2024 campaign.
Pre-season testing in Bahrain this week will give Mercedes valuable time and data to measure how its season will progress.
“We are pleased with our progress over the winter and we’re looking forward to finding out where we stack up against everyone else,” Allison exclaimed.
“It will be a fiercely fought championship from the off.
“At this stage of the regulations, the cars are converging in terms of performance.
“There will be multiple winners, and it’s possible that we will see even more teams than the four that scored victories last year taking to the top step of the podium.”
READ MORE – Mercedes unveils W16 car for the 2025 F1 season
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