The Next Chapter
New season. New car. New line-up. “We open an exciting new era in the story of our team and Mercedes-AMG motorsport in 2025. We are building on the incredible legacy of our heritage, and we can’t wait to go racing," declares Toto.
New season. New car. New line-up. “We open an exciting new era in the story of our team and Mercedes-AMG motorsport in 2025. We are building on the incredible legacy of our heritage, and we can’t wait to go racing," declares Toto.
Launch day – one of our busiest but favourite days of the year. The culmination of months of hard work at Brackley and Brixworth was revealed to the world at the Bahrain International Circuit. Our 2025 colour-scheme had been launched a week prior, when the entire F1 paddock came together in London for a special F1 75 launch event at the O2 Arena. Similar to its predecessor, W16 would run a mixture of traditional Mercedes Silver, mixed with black and a dash of PETRONAS green. Three days of pre-season testing in Bahrain would follow our official launch, and it gave 18-year-old rookie Kimi a chance to get behind the wheel of his first official F1 car for the first time. 457 laps later, it was time to return to Brackley and break down all the data before the season opener in Australia two weeks later.
It was a strong start to 2025. George claimed a podium Down Under in Australia, while Kimi's maiden F1 race could not have gone better. From P16 on the grid, the young Italian charged through to P4 in trecherous conditions at Albert Park, becoming the second-youngest point scorer in F1 history. A week later in Shanghai, George claimed Mercedes' 300th F1 podium, and in Japan it was Kimi's turn for a little bit of history. By leading 10 laps in Suzuka, Kimi became the youngest driver ever to lead an F1 race, and his fastest lap in Japan also saw him become the youngest to claim the quickest tour in a Grand Prix in the sports history. The best result of the first six races came in Bahrain, when George held off Lando Norris' McLaren in an ailing W16 to finish P2. In Miami in May, Kimi put his name in the history books again by becoming the youngest polesitter of any kind when he took P1 in Sprint Qualifying. Two days later, George would cap off our weekend in the Sunshine State with a P3 - his fourth and our fourth podium in six races. Up next, was Europe.
The 2025 season marks the fourth season of the current chassis regulations, and the 12th of the existing Power Unit regulations. For 2026, a major opportunity shines on the horizon.
“Being the fourth year of these regulations on the chassis side, the cars are in the more mature phase. Big gains in lap time are harder to come by but we’ve been focused on making improvements in the areas that held us back last year,” explains Technical Director, James Allison.
“Our primary focus has been on dialling out the W15’s slight reluctance to turn in slow corners, along with the imbalance in tyre temperatures that made the car inconsistent from session to session,” he continues.
“That focus has led to changes to nearly every visible aerodynamic surface, new front suspension, and further changes under the skin of the W16 to remedy some of the more challenging characteristics of its predecessor.”
James adds: “We are pleased with our progress over the winter and we’re looking forward to finding out where we stack up against everyone else.”
Power Unit development meanwhile remains frozen, but this doesn’t mean that work stops, as power unit boss Hywel Thomas, Managing Director of Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains explains: “We have been looking at reliability updates, and some calibration upgrades, to deliver robustness, squeeze the last little bits of performance out of the Power Unit and give ourselves the best opportunity this season. We’ve made good progress and hopefully that can add performance on track.”