2025 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[OverheatedTurbo]

George seemed like he was on for a P4 at best, just rotten luck.
Why is the team showing its usual weakness so far into the season when the W16 has been a breath of fresh air in the earlier races?
Miami, Imola, and now Monaco are showing a disturbing downward trend. The new rear suspension is a concern also.
Uncertain development path and rear tyre overheating seem to be an unwanted characteristic of Mercedes since 2022.
On the bright side, they usually find their second wind after the halfway mark in the season.

Just went over the footage and George ran the flexi wing and Antonelli ran the new front wing during qualy. If I knew how to post pictures here, I’d upload them. I am very concerned post Barcelona onwards, the car philosophy is very dependent on these wings and it does not bode well for Merc if that’s the case, unless the new floor has been designed with this in mind whilst adding more performance. I have my doubts.

[Lasssept]

[OverheatedTurbo]

I’d be less concerned if he had the TD018 wing. Since he didn’t I am very concerned. For this race, anything can happen due to the forced two stop. Everyone has a chance..

[Lasssept]

Russell

Antonelli

[SB15]

I’d be less concerned if he had the TD018 wing. Since he didn’t I am very concerned. For this race, anything can happen due to the forced two stop. Everyone has a chance..

I don't know why you're concerned? He wasn't going that much faster than Kimi in Q1 anyway before the crash. I take it as a positive regardless it simply means that the wing is too loaded that's an easy fix for the team to make and you know it because they tested a less loaded version in testing already. The current W16 doesn't like this track or softer tyres, thankfully Spain is next week.

As far as forced two stop, yes everyone else has a chance, but ultimately it depends on your luck race pace and strategy.

The Team needs to work together with George and Kimi to make end-roads and hope it works out for them.

[OverheatedTurbo]

It's rigid as he'll suspension wise. That generally doesn't pay back around here. Controlled malleability is where its at, not spring rates like granite.

That too, there's no type of "give" from the suspension that allows rotation.

Also, you think Mercedes are running too much of an undercut on the sidepod?

I'm only highlighting this as some sort of explainination as to why the rear tyres heats up so quickly compared to others, it could very be not only the floor edge where the venturi exits are, but also how the car controls the wake particularly where the undercut is.

While I feel I'm good in observation of aerodynamic effects, my appreciation of that I doubt is complete in broad sense. I'll offer a view and see what that brings in the comments from more accomplished contributions, Of the ilk Vanja etc for giving in depth analysis.

Mechanical though, I'm more equipped to offer opinion and comparison. For me, this team has it in their dna/lineage of "punishing" rear tyres since inception as, possibly, part of their included thinking, that's in comparison to other designers focus. With development like DAS, brake magic, internal fins in rear rims etc all part of concentrated development before we even got to 2022. Obviously successful in tbat era, but "leaning" constantly in tbat trying to safeguard rear tyres all of them at various usage profile throughout the race weekend.
This era of rules seems to have brought far more attention from teams in general about just how they apply load to tyres, and with limited design freedom, difficult to solve for some.
I do believe there's correlation in running higher rear pressure (when it's forced by Pirelli for track topography) which simply brings raised tyre structure resilience to the whole field, with MB seeming to possess the ability to leverage and capitalise on that specific aspect.
It just seems to move tyre use more into their overall team design focus/philosophy and lift them relative to others.

Here, where malleability is king, there's much harder chafer technical team.

Still Q may show something else. Hard to predict though.

I wonder what are they doing differently vs Ferrari/Redbull in terms of how they work the tyres. It baffles me that the SF-23 was a tyre muncher, but Ferrari fixed that in the 2024 season. Meanwhile, Merc clearly made a step in that area in 2025 but that step wasn’t big enough. This issue can reappear in 2026 if they can’t cure it this season.

[f1isgood]

I wonder what are they doing differently vs Ferrari/Redbull in terms of how they work the tyres. It baffles me that the SF-23 was a tyre muncher, but Ferrari fixed that in the 2024 season. Meanwhile, Merc clearly made a step in that area in 2025 but that step wasn’t big enough. This issue can reappear in 2026 if they can’t cure it this season.

Over a lap, the lack of stable downforce can be compensated with fresher tires. This was exactly what the SF23 did. Use all available grip to look better than it actually was. Ferrari already fixed most of the issues by end of 2023 by adding stable downforce pretty much -- see AD for instance. The biggest difference between the Red Bull car in race trim in 22/23 versus Ferrari was Red Bull car simply had more useable downforce in race trim, which meant less sliding, better tire degradation amongst other things.

The W13 had better tire management than the W14 series onwards I think although it lacked pace mostly.

[_cerber1]

Is it already known why Russell dropped out, what happened to his engine?

[Lasssept]

Is it already known why Russell dropped out, what happened to his engine?

George’s Qualifying also came to a premature conclusion after losing electrical power after hitting a bump coming out of Turn 1 on his first push lap in Q2.

Russell: The issue itself was odd. I hit a bump on the run out of Turn 1 and lost power. It felt like something electronic just disconnected. I tried everything I could to get the car back to the garage and then restart it when I stopped in the tunnel. Unfortunately, there was nothing more we could do.

[Lasssept]

[OverheatedTurbo]

Very interesting.

[Matt2725]

Awful strategy chosen. No idea why they didn't just get their first stop done early.

[Mansell89]

Completely agree- they are now at the mercy of Liam Lawson, basically.

Cannot believe they haven’t taken the early stop punt.

[Matt2725]

They're just allowing Sainz to back them up. Just box now and force Sainz to make a choice.

It's like the strategy team are stuck like a rabbit in headlights.

[OverheatedTurbo]

Take this dumb track off the calendar or make it rotational. This track is a joke with these big cars.