Mercedes has revealed the first images of the W16, its new car for the 2025 Formula 1 season.
The team, which presented the livery for this car at the F1 75 launch event last week, endured a mixed season in 2024. Although it won four grands prix, the most since the current ground effect regulations were introduced two years earlier, it fell to fourth in the constructors’ championship, its lowest position since 2012.Mercedes‘ last car was especially competitive on high-speed circuits. However the team struggled to make it work across a range of tracks and was often puzzled by the variations in performance they encountered as track conditions changed during a race weekend. Remedying that has been a key focus for the team with its latest design.
However Mercedes has lost the input of Formula 1’s most successful driver of all time, and one of its most experienced drivers, following Lewis Hamilton’s move to Ferrari.
Team principal and co-owner Toto Wolff said it is embarking upon “an exciting new era” this year.
“Last season was incredibly competitive on the track and, whilst we took several wins, we are all focused on challenging for victories more consistently,” he said. “We have made gains in the off-season, but we will only know where we stand come the first race in Australia.”
George Russell, who scored his third grand prix victory at Las Vegas last year (and lost another at Spa where he was disqualified when his car was found to be underweight), is now Mercedes’ most experienced driver.
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He is joined by F1 rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli, whose promotion to F1 has been astonishingly rapid. He won three junior championships in 2023, the most senior of which was the Formula Regional European title, then skipped Formula 3 and spent a single season in Formula 2 before being hired as Hamilton’s replacement.
The team’s former race driver Valtteri Bottas has returned as third driver this year. Frederik Vesti will continue as reserve driver.
Pictures: 2025 Mercedes W16
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BasCB (@bascb)
24th February 2025, 14:27
Now show it out on track!
MarkWebber (@markwebber)
24th February 2025, 16:08
No sidepods again?
Wer
24th February 2025, 17:24
Where do you see no sidepods? Do you even see the car?
The Dolphins
24th February 2025, 18:58
Sidepods are there, Mercedes have stated in the past that their “no sidepod” concept was flawed in part because they underestimated the value of the horizontal surfaces in conditioning and directing the air to the diffuser and to seal the floor. This is an extreme example of the undercut, a trend which Red Bull pioneered and others followed. It will be interesting to see if this concept works and if more teams go this route.
XM (@xmf1)
25th February 2025, 2:00
It looks like red bull’s 2024 sidepods design
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
24th February 2025, 19:05
There’s some proper twiddly stuff on the leading edge of that floor. A whole fleet of bargeboards. (Below the lower suspension arms in the main head-on shot.) As you can tell I’m no expert, but that’s quite striking.
El Pollo Loco
24th February 2025, 20:39
Some mad max style contact deterrents on the edge of the floor too.
Ajaxn
24th February 2025, 20:04
A more consistent season? Its another way of saying mistakes were made. Is there a stat for driver error, and if so which driver would head that stat?
Hamilton’s move to Ferrari could be seen in the same light. They bought him in precisely to make fewer mistakes.
Applebook
24th February 2025, 23:14
Hamilton made more mistakes than Russell. In fact, Lewis likely made more mistakes in just one grand prix (Brazil) weekend than Russell made all year.
grat
25th February 2025, 13:33
And yet, Russell barely outscored Hamilton over the course of 2024.
El Pollo Loco
24th February 2025, 20:38
They’ve been targeting that for five years in a row now. Sorry Toto, but without Brawn and a massive PU head start for Mercedes, you’d be a nobody in F1.
XM (@xmf1)
25th February 2025, 2:02
I can’t recall his achievements when involved with Williams
El Pollo Loco
25th February 2025, 3:34
His biggest “achievement” was forcing Williams to replace Frank with Claire (who only had experience doing PR part time) instead of John Williams who had proven his ability to run and even build a team from scratch without any family funding. He went to F2 during some of its most competitive years and built a winning team from scratch. Finding all the investors, engineers, building the team structure, etc. I think Toto wanted someone weak he could manipulate at the helm of Williams rather than someone who know what they were doing that would challenge him.
anon
25th February 2025, 6:35
El Pollo Loco, and what is the source of such claims, given that your supposed claim contradicts what many others have said?
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
25th February 2025, 11:28
On the other hand, by not running a racing team, John Williams was able to continue composing and arranging movie soundtracks, bringing pleasure to an audience of millions. Names are only a small detail but they help with credibility.
Maciek (@maciek)
24th February 2025, 22:26
Vertical sidepod inlets
El Pollo Loco
24th February 2025, 22:58
An interesting thing to note is that almost all the cars have increased the size of cooling intakes because they expect a close field and therefore a lot of time sitting in traffic/hot, dirty air.
The Dolphins
25th February 2025, 0:13
@maciek Red Bull had it last year as well. An evolution of the Mercedes W13 cooling arrangement.