Mercedes set to introduce non-ADUO reliability updates to its power unit in Austria

Mercedes has moved to stabilise its power unit package after two race‑ending failures for George Russell in Canada and Andrea Kimi Antonelli in Barcelona were traced to the same vulnerable area of the battery pack.

Following internal investigations and trackside diagnostics, both James Allison and Antonelli confirmed that corrective measures are now being phased into the pool — though none of them relate to the much‑discussed ADUO system.

Mercedes technical director James Allison said the team has now isolated the issue to a specific region of the battery, which has affected multiple Mercedes‑powered cars this season.

“I think anyone who's a keen watcher of the sport will have seen that this has laid a few Mercedes engine cars low over the season so far,” Allison said.

“They're not all identical, but they do sort of originate in the same broad part of the battery.”

According to Allison, the team now has a clear understanding of the failure modes: “I think that most of the areas of risk have been understood.

"And with a bit of luck, when we start to sort of phase in the new modules into the racing season — we call the battery ‘the module’ — then our fortunes as a fleet should pick up.”

The DNFs, he added, have been costly: “Obviously for us, that's an important thing. These DNFs are very, very painful.”

Championship runaway leader Antonelli revealed that the battery‑related issues were not new — and had first appeared during the Miami weekend.

“The issues had actually surfaced some time ago,” he said. “I already had some trouble in FP1 in Miami, and then came George’s retirement in Montreal. We’ve left quite a few points on the table.”

His Barcelona retirement, just three laps from the finish while running second, was triggered by a sudden thermal spike — but not due to ambient conditions.

“It’s true that a component suddenly experienced a sharp temperature spike, which caused the battery to glitch. But in Canada the conditions were completely different, much cooler.”

Antonelli confirmed he will run a new power unit paired with an updated battery pack featuring several reliability‑focused changes.

Mercedes has already introduced a series of software patches and minor hardware reinforcements to stabilise the battery system. Antonelli stressed that these updates are standard reliability actions.

“Mercedes has introduced a series of software updates and minor hardware tweaks to the battery pack, but these are routine reliability measures and have no connection to the ADUO.”