Mercedes has revealed that the team will introduce upgrades at Formula 1‘s Canadian Grand Prix as the Silver Arrows bid to bounce back from a nightmare triple-header.
The first European triple-header of the 2025 season did not go to plan for Mercedes as the Brackley-based squad scored a paltry 18 points in Imola, Monaco and Barcelona.
This was a far cry from Mercedes’ early-season form that saw George Russell secure four podiums across the opening six races of the championship.
However, going into the Montreal weekend, Mercedes Technical Director James Allison has hinted at incremental upgrades that could put the team’s fortunes back on track.
“It is a track where we’ve tended to find our feet relatively well in the past. So I’m looking forward to it. We’ve got one or two new bits to take with us and we’ll see how we get on,” he revealed.
Mercedes did bring some upgrades across the triple-header, too, but the team’s troubles at Imola prompted it to shelve the revised rear suspension that it had developed.
With Andrea Kimi Antonelli enduring two retirements due to technical issues, the German marque has dropped a place behind Ferrari to third in the Constructors’ standings.
“We’ve definitely been pre-disastered with out-of-the-blue DNFs on very mature components that we would never have expected a failure like that,” he acknowledged. “So with a bit of luck, we’ll have better fortune in the future.”
However, Allison believes Mercedes’ stumble will prove to be short-lived as he suspects the cold temperatures usually prevalent in Canada will help the team bounce back.
“Well, that may come towards us, of course, if it is cooler,” he recognised.
“But I think that more important than the absolute temperature is just the different nature of the challenge in Montreal.
“Big braking circuit, a circuit where it’s relatively harder to get the front and rear axle at the right temperature relative to one another.”
Poor set-up decisions exacerbate Mercedes struggles
Mercedes’ performance has been hampered in hotter temperatures since 2024, and Allison admitted the problem has been exacerbated by poor set-up decisions.
“I think the more important thing of these three races were we got the first couple pretty wrong on the way that we set the car up, asked too much of the rear axle, suffered badly as a consequence,” he divulged.
George Russell’s race was compromised from the outset at Imola as an extreme rate of tyre degradation forced him into making a relatively early pit stop.
But the British driver’s fourth-place finish at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya last week is a sign that the team has figured out a possible solution, setup-wise.
“We approached Barcelona with something of a different mindset and in a track which would have murdered our tyres if we’d gone at it like we did in Imola and Monaco, we actually were a bit more ourselves,” Allison elucidated.
“So, looking forward and knowing that we can do more of that and lean deeper into that in the races ahead, I think that’s a good thing.”
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