Why Mercedes still has a part to play in F1’s 2025 running order

Quite rightly, McLaren has captured many of the plaudits for the step it made during its winter of content – having put together a significantly rapid car that has also demonstrated a light touch with the tyres over the course of a race distance. It's no wonder the other teams have put the papaya-tinged outfit on a pedestal.

It's also fair to say that McLaren perhaps, for a variety of reasons, hasn't quite made the most of that. Lando Norris has erred in crunch situations, while Oscar Piastri's Melbourne slip-and-slide has pegged his championship lead back. Saturdays have also been fitful, as the MCL39s have been hit-or-miss in qualifying trim – something that has let Max Verstappen chalk up a couple of pole positions in a car that is viewed as comparatively problematic.

Even though the two McLarens and Verstappen have been responsible for colouring in the results tables so far, it would be folly to underplay Mercedes' hand at this stage. The Silver Arrows still have a role to play in 2025, and there's the sense that a bit of a push would be enough to cast it more firmly into the reckoning.

Like McLaren, Mercedes has made a laudable step forward for this year. Curiously, its fortunes – or lack thereof – in Saudi Arabia rather exemplify that; although the team endured multiple races in 2024 where it lost the tyres and found itself sinking down the order, Jeddah was the first time it had suffered with its Pirellis overheating and blistering towards the final stages of the race.

That it endured those issues and still came away with fifth and sixth, without really coming under any scrutiny towards the end of the race, alludes to the fact that it can maintain a steady level of baseline pace even on troubled ground.

The W16, per trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin, "hasn't really got the vices" of its predecessors – it's stable, quick, and (Saudi Arabia aside) generally hasn't struggled too much with extended stints on tyres. Jeddah was a bit of an outlier with its high temperatures and relentless nature owing to its paucity of slow corners where the tyres can cool off.

Mercedes started 2025 strong with three podiums in four grands prix, but was disappointed after the last round in Jeddah. Nevertheless, it is still second in the championship

Photo by: Peter Fox - Getty Images

"There's clearly a gap to McLaren that we need to chip away at," Shovlin noted earlier in the year. "But that looks more like just a normal development race that we need to get stuck into."

Mercedes hasn't exactly had much of a pay-off through the 2022 regulation cycle, aside from a few token race wins, as it has fallen firmly out of championship view in each of the three prior seasons. Its 2022 W13 apparently carried huge potential with its novel approach to slimline sidepods, but the car was distinctly prone to porpoising and this led to instability at the quicker circuits.

That potential seen in simulations seemingly remained unlocked, and the follow-up W14 did not deliver either; the team rolled back on its sidepod innovations and instead pursued a more conventional concept.

Russell can be counted on to deliver a couple of wins. Now installed as the de facto team leader, the Briton has shouldered that responsibility extremely well and taken the W16 to its extremities so far in 2025's nascent stages

Last year's W15 had its clear peaks, notably Lewis Hamilton's feel-good win at Silverstone and in its control over the Belgian Grand Prix weekend (before George Russell was disqualified for his car being underweight). But its performance fluctuations were frequent; the team found that by addressing one problem, it had not necessarily considered the knock-on effects in doing so.

Adjusting its approach for the development of the W16 so far has worked out, and Mercedes currently finds itself locked in a tete-a-tete battle with Red Bull for the mantle of "second-fastest team". But it needs more to get closer to McLaren and to bring the 2025 machine into contention for victories.

The W16 seems to be a little bit less draggy than McLaren's MCL39, albeit at the cost of downforce; through-corner speed is a bit weaker, and that leads to a slight disadvantage in the deltas when the two cars hit the traction zones. But these disparities are tiny, and in the last two races Russell has been within two tenths of Piastri over a single lap. 

Mercedes has improved in 2025 but it's still some way off reigning champions McLaren, which has won four of the opening five grands prix

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

Over a race lap, the differences are slightly larger and usually just north of 0.3s per tour. And that, of course, adds up over the full distance; McLaren can get more out of the tyres without too much of a penalty, while Mercedes trails slightly in that arena.

If Mercedes could find that extra tenth or two in qualifying to surpass the McLarens, it would theoretically find itself in a position where clean air negates some of that deficit. While the gaps between the two are small enough to make a difference over a race distance, the race lead has proven to be especially valuable this season.

In that position, Russell can be counted on to deliver a couple of wins. Now installed as the de facto team leader, the Briton has shouldered that responsibility extremely well and taken the W16 to its extremities so far in 2025's nascent stages. Outscoring Hamilton in two of their three seasons together should be given greater value, even amid the seven-time champion's struggles with the cars in his post-title seasons with the team; Hamilton faltered, and Russell did not.

That Mercedes is said to be amid talks over a fresh deal for Russell indicates its confidence in him. When it came to the thorny subject of luring Verstappen to the team, it became unclear which of the Mercedes drivers would make way in any hypothetical switch.

Russell appears to have batted away any suggestions that it could be him, owing to his form this season, and extracting a win from Mercedes' most benign chassis in years would surely be the final clincher.

And it shouldn't be Antonelli making way either. Mercedes is patently aware of the scope of the Italian's outrageous potential, and is taking an understandably patient approach to help him realise that. Verstappen's seismic jump into F1 at the age of 17 perhaps skewed the perspective, but it should be noted that Antonelli is already looking like a natural amid the front guard of F1 at the mere age of 18. Giving the Bologna-born teen an F1 drive was a huge risk for Mercedes, especially after his Parabolica shunt at Monza, but he's already paying that back. 

The Mercedes drivers have impressed this year, quashing away rumours of Verstappen joining

Photo by: Kym Illman - Getty Images

His race pace is already very good; it's not quite on a par with Russell, particularly towards the end of the stint where the tyres appear to get away from Antonelli slightly earlier, but we're only really talking about 0.3-0.4s per lap. Besides, Antonelli seemed to keep the tyres in a little bit better than Russell towards the end of the Saudi Arabia race; the more experienced driver faced a bit more graining in the closing stages, leaving him ensconced in the high 1m33s while Antonelli was well within the 1m32s.

Currently, qualifying seems to be the main differentiating factor between the two Mercedes drivers. Antonelli is a little bit behind, but 2025 is very much demonstrating the value of experience in throwing a lap down in the final stage of Q3 and holding back slightly. 

"From the first time we put him in an F1 car, you could see that he was going to be a decent F1 driver, and we had high expectations," Shovlin reckoned of Antonelli.

It's a couple of tenths away from getting to where it feels it should be – and one has the sense that Mercedes can find that and put its own stamp on 2025's narrative

"But if you look at how he performed in that wet race in Melbourne, that was quite exceptional for someone in their first race. And while we did a lot of mileage with him in the TPC testing, he's not running with other cars. So this is the first opportunity you can put him in those racing situations.

"From what we've seen, really impressed and reassuring that he's only going to get better from where he is already."

That Antonelli has been able to find reserve driver Valtteri Bottas receptive to giving him advice over a race weekend is another colossal boon. For someone so young, being able to tap into the experience of a 10-time grand prix winner offers a tremendous level of support.

Although Mercedes will be pleased to have started 2025 in solid form, it's champing at the bit to bridge that gap to McLaren. Building a strong car is one thing, however; developing it without disrupting any technological wasps' nests is quite another – as the team well knows. It's a couple of tenths away from getting to where it feels it should be – and one has the sense that Mercedes can find that and put its own stamp on 2025's narrative. 

Mercedes still has the potential to be a key player of the 2025 frontrunning battle

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images