Mercedes have launched their 2025 challenger, the W16, just two days before pre-season testing in Bahrain, and they may have solved a problem that drove Lewis Hamilton crazy.
The Silver Arrows finished the 2024 campaign fourth in the Constructors’ Championship standings, despite Hamilton and George Russell combining for four Grand Prix victories.
On its day, the W15 was a fast race car, but it was plagued with inconsistency, which hampered Hamilton more than team-mate Russell. In qualifying, this was a particular issue, and the seven-time world champion was often forced to fight back from way down the order.
“The last two years, it made all of us in the team’s lives tough,” he said at the 2024 Singapore Grand Prix. “I would say these rules have made life tough for everyone.
“Some weekends we arrive and we think we’re going to be better than we are and we’re not great, and then some weekends all of a sudden we’re there and win the race and it lifts us up.
“It’s a bit like playing golf. You get one good hit, and it makes you continue, but all the rest of the shots are really bad! It’s that kind of experience. It can be so frustrating, but you still love it, and you still continue to go. You’ve got to keep pushing because you’re searching for that feeling again like we’ve had at Silverstone or Spa.”
Fortunately for Mercedes, they appear to have solved the issue, which has been prominent for all three of the team’s ground effect era cars. Unfortunately for Hamilton, this solution has arrived after his departure from Brackley.
“Being the fourth year of these regulations on the chassis side, the cars are in the more mature phase,” technical director James Allison explained on Monday. “Big gains in lap time are harder to come by, but we’ve been concentrating on making improvements in the areas that held us back last year.
“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.”
