Mercedes hint at ‘significant change’ on W16 to avoid falling into ‘new trap’

George Russell said the Mercedes W16 is set to be a “significant change” to what came before, with the team having been “more thorough than ever” over its tweaks.

The Briton explained that the changes in previous seasons have solved one issue but “created a new one” in the process, with Mercedes’ development geared in part towards not wanting to “fall into a new trap” over winter.

Russell: Mercedes W16 to be ‘significant change’ in F1 2025 season

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher and Sam Cooper

The covers came off the livery of the W16 at London’s O2 Arena on Tuesday, with Mercedes set to hold a separate launch for the car on February 24, before taking to the track for the first time the following day for filming.

While the team took four victories last season after what Russell described as a “lull” of a winless 2023, the Silver Arrows finished fourth in the Constructors’ standings behind McLaren, Ferrari and Red Bull.

But given the closeness of the field in the second half of last season, Russell predicts it could be another tight battle this time around with the team’s new challenger.

When asked how different the W16 will be from its predecessor, Russell told media including PlanetF1.com: “I think it’s going to be a significant change this year, to be honest.

“Every year we’ve uncovered a problem, we’ve solved it, and it’s created a new one, and [this year] we’ve probably been a lot more disciplined with every change that we’ve made, have been more thorough than ever in terms of the simulator running, just to ensure we’re not going to fall into a new trap. And so far, it’s a reasonable step.

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“Obviously, you have no idea what everyone else is doing, and it’s going to be, I feel like, quite an interesting season with how people deploy the resource between ’25 and ’26.”

Mercedes are due to run the W16 for the first time in the lead-up to pre-season testing in Bahrain, conducting a filming day around the Sakhir International Circuit before three days of running that will help the team prepare for the new season.

But as for getting the feel of a new car and how well it could perform, Russell believes it does not take long to know whether or not the car will be easy to drive.

When asked how soon he had felt indications of something feeling ‘not quite right’ within a car previously, he replied: “I think within five laps, you know if you’re in for a good season or not – and we’ve known within the first five laps of the last couple of years that we wouldn’t be fighting for the championship, or at least we knew we wouldn’t be fighting at the beginning of the season.

“So I feel that, as I say, it’s been much more robust this season, but all of the teams are so competitive now, and everybody knows the limitation that they’ve had over these last three years.

“If we bring the performance that we expect, it should be a good step forward, but we’ve seen it with many other teams – they bring an upgrade and and it doesn’t work.

“So there are never guarantees, but as a team, we obviously went through such a lull throughout 2023, not winning a race, then there’s a big restructure change with James Allison coming back [as technical director, ed.] at the helm of the new approach, and I think hopefully we’ll see a bit of that into ’25. Obviously, ’26 is a big one, but still, I’m optimistic that we can have a decent season.”

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