Mercedes has insisted that the team has been bringing upgrades to its 2025 Formula 1 car as it prepares to introduce more prominent changes in the coming rounds.
The German marque’s choice to evolve last season’s car has paid dividends as George Russell has driven the enhanced W16 to four podiums in the opening six races.
But while it resides in a secure second place in the Constructors’ Championship, Mercedes languishes a comprehensive 105 points behind engine customer McLaren.
That has prompted observers to question the principle behind Mercedes adopting a less aggressive approach to development compared to rivals Ferrari and Red Bull.
But when probed on that particular topic in the squad’s post-race Miami review, Mercedes Technical Director James Allison denied that the W16 has gone unchanged.
Allison highlighted that Mercedes has been implementing less pronounced revisions that haven’t had to be published in the upgrade document that the FIA publishes.
“We have actually been bringing upgrades,” Allison clarified.
“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.”
How a hectic F1 schedule has impacted the development race
Allison underlined how the first six events taking place outside Europe across an eight-week stretch made it challenging to unleash a more sizeable upgrade package.
READ MORE – Mercedes reveals ‘common-sense’ approach to F1 upgrade timeline in 2025
“We’re a quarter of the way through the season already,” he acknowledged. “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.”
Mercedes plotting race-pace improvement
Last weekend’s Miami Grand Prix validated that Mercedes harbours the potential to edge McLaren over one lap, but it can’t sustain the challenge over a race distance.
With Russell trailing 37 seconds back as the closest non-McLaren, Allison admitted its upcoming updates would be honed towards boosting the W16’s long-run pace.
“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.”
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