After their success in Canada, the W16 struggled in Austria and Great Britain, revealing weaknesses in tire management and balance—particularly in the faster sections of the track. Now, Mercedes plans to fight back with new upgrades at Spa and Budapest, aiming to regain competitiveness and prevent Ferrari from pulling away in the Constructors’ Championship.
Looking back at the last two race weekends, the two most disappointing teams have arguably been Red Bull and Mercedes. For the team from Milton Keynes, the combination of Austria and Great Britain was something of a last-ditch effort to stay in the championship fight and close the gap to McLaren—especially as the deficit to the top continues to grow rather than shrink.
However, recent results have been far from encouraging, and Red Bull is no longer hiding the fact that, objectively speaking, the championship appears to be heading toward Woking. Mercedes, on the other hand, finds itself in a different situation.
Following their win in Canada, there was hope that the positive momentum could continue, even on tracks less suited to their car than Montreal—a circuit which, with its numerous acceleration zones and slow corners, plays to some of the W16’s strengths and helps mitigate thermal degradation, despite high ambient temperatures.
Austria and Silverstone told a different story. Mercedes struggled—particularly in high-speed corners and even in qualifying—due to tire overheating, which directly affected driver confidence, precisely where it was needed most.
In Austria, this overheating was especially problematic in fast, successive corners where the tires had no chance to cool down, leading to significant degradation and making the car even harder to control during the race—more so than in qualifying. The fact that the W16 finished nearly a minute behind the race winner and over 30 seconds behind the lead Ferrari illustrates a weekend that started badly and ended worse.
Although Mercedes expected some difficulties in the race, they had hoped for a solid qualifying result, having previously been able to capitalize on the car’s one-lap pace—even on faster tracks. That’s exactly why Silverstone turned out to be a double disappointment.
Despite cooler conditions—especially on Saturday—Mercedes didn’t look like a contender for pole position, let alone for a strong finish. George Russell’s fourth place, secured in the final moments of Q3, appeared more like an individual highlight from a perfect lap than a sign of the W16’s sudden competitiveness.
“It was two tough races—Austria and Great Britain. We only managed fifth and tenth place, which is far below our expectations,” said Bradley Lord in Mercedes’ regular race debrief.
“The first goal is to put ourselves in a position to show the car’s real potential. That said, there are also upgrades that should improve performance—already at Belgium and Hungary,” he added, confirming that the new components will arrive before the summer break. However, with Spa being a sprint weekend, there will only be one free practice session to validate the updates.
Andrea Kimi Antonelli felt the most pressure in the high-speed sections, likely due to the many setup experiments the team carried out in an attempt to find the right operating window. In Austria—and even more so at Silverstone—these limitations also influenced the choice of aerodynamic package, with Russell able to run a more aggressive configuration.
“There are aspects we need to understand better after Silverstone—particularly the limits of balance with Kimi, and whether the drivers can really push as much as they’d like through fast corners. Also, the way we’re setting up the car,” Lord added. “We need to analyze that data and decide which specification of the car we want to bring to Spa.”
