Mercedes tease “more obvious” upgrades for European F1 races

Mercedes have “more obvious” upgrades in the pipeline for introduction across the coming European F1 races.

The German manufacturer currently sits second in the constructors’ championship, 105 points adrift of McLaren, having emerged from the winter as the nearest challengers to the reigning world champions at the majority of the early rounds in 2025.

Mercedes are yet to win a race but George Russell’s superb form has seen him claim three third-place finishes and a P2 in Bahrain, with the team appearing to have addressed some of their big weaknesses with their new W16 car.

The Silver Arrows have been bringing small updates to their 2025 challenger across the opening six rounds but have more sizeable upgrades planned for the upcoming Imola-Monaco-Barcelona triple-header.

“We have actually been bringing upgrades,” Mercedes technical director James Allison said in the team’s latest post-race debrief video.

“They’re not particularly sort of 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. And with a bit of luck, they’ll improve our fortunes.

“But we’re a quarter of the way through the season already. It’s been coming at the teams hard and fast. It’s actually quite difficult to get upgrades to the car when the races are coming at you in this sort of machine-gun fashion.

“So hopefully the ones that happen in the next two or three races will move the dial a bit for us and also as we will continue to try to work on the tyre temperature in the races, that will also improve our fortune.”

What is the focus of Mercedes’ upgrades?

While Mercedes have been strong in qualifying, their race pace has been lacking at times, particularly in Saudi Arabia where Russell and rookie teammate Kimi Antonelli finished a low-key fifth and sixth.

Allison is hopeful the coming upgrades will enable Mercedes to take a step forward on Sundays.

“Because we’ve been pretty strong in qualifying for the first several races, I think we can expect to have an okay shout of getting the car reasonably well up the grid in qualifying,” he explained.

“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.

“And that’s all about – or, the majority of it will be about – controlling the temperature of those tyres and making sure the car can therefore use the pace that’s in it.”