F1 News
W16 is Mercedes' ticket back to winning? 'Improved what held us back in 2024'
Last year Mercedes suffered throughout the season with an unruly car in the slow corners, high tyre degradations, inconsistent peformance across sessions, and what was more troubling, the team could not pinpoint the causes to their increase in performance, nor find the root causes behind their dips and outright loss of speed. The W16 may just be the answer to the questions that Mercedes was unable to find last year, and going back to 2022 as well.
Since the implementation of the current ground effect rules, Mercedes has been unable to vy for wins consistently, let alone championships. However, with the W16, James Allison, the team's Technical Director, did not focus only on outright performance, but on the ironing out the 'gremlins' that prevented the team from being a contender last season.
"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 concentrating on making improvements in the areas that held us back last year," explains said Allison in the Mercedes press release of the W16's digital launch.
Mercedes undergoes radical transformation
In 2024, Mercedes highs were as sharp as they were shocking, with the German outfit's inconsistency being the only consistent trait to their season. Allison explains what is it specifically that the team delved into when creating the W16. "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."
How substantial have the changes been? "Every aerodynamic surface," has been modified. The W16 also boasts a new front suspension, and "further changes under the skin of the W16 to remedy some of the more challenging characteristics of its predecessor," the press release reads. "We are pleased with our progress over the winter and we're looking forward to finding out where we stack up against everyone else," Allison concluded.