Under Russell's Spanish GP Verstappen controversy, other problems are harming Mercedes

New York Times

2 days ago

BARCELONA — This isn't where Mercedes expected to be.
George Russell started the 2025 Formula One season with a run of podium finishes, four in six race weekends. Kimi Antonelli steadily brought home points and consistently ran in the middle of the top 10 for a majority of the opening slate (aside from being point-less in Bahrain). Albeit early in the season, Mercedes looked poised to finish second in the constructors championship behind runaway leader McLaren if it kept up its form.
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Red Bull had only Max Verstappen's points rolling in regularly and Ferrari has been an inconsistent threat. The keywords here are 'early' and 'if.'
F1 headed to the European portion of the calendar in mid-May and Mercedes experienced what could be described as a 180 in performance. Antonelli didn't finish two of the three races in the tripleheader of Imola-Monaco-Barcelona, and Mercedes' best weekend, pointwise, came in Spain – when Russell secured a fourth-place finish and 12 points.
Overall, Mercedes only scored 18 points in those three weeks, all of which came via Russell, and now, Ferrari has passed it for second in the constructors standings. By comparison, Mercedes had scored 18 points minimum in every race until Imola. The gap sits at six points in Ferrari's favor, but for the Silver Arrows to bounce back it needs to get to the bottom of its car issues.
As its predecessor did in 2024, the W16 has struggled in the heat at times with tires overheating. This only accelerates degradation and forces the team into more (and sometimes earlier, as in Imola) pit stops. It's affected the car's pace, too, and further hotter races are still to come.
Then there's how recent upgrades haven't quite panned out as Mercedes likely hoped. It brought changes to Imola, including a new front wing, but these haven't brought the team more into the fight with McLaren and Red Bull. To complicate matters a touch further, Mercedes has experienced technical issues with the W16 all through this stretch, resulting in both of Antonelli's DNFs (Imola and Barcelona) and Russell's shock Q2 exit in Monaco that essentially prevented it from scoring any points in that round.
Setbacks happen, but this is one of F1's top teams. Mercedes can't afford to continue returning such paltry results when there is such intense competition for the places behind McLaren.
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'The result is certainly not satisfactory today, the P4,' Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff said Sunday, 'and in my opinion, we just need to get on top of it.'
A recurring saying within the F1 paddock – and a phrase often used by Wolff – is that there's no silver bullet to fix a car's pace problem. But Mercedes has noticed that a pattern has developed with its car: the overheating tires.
During the Imola race, Russell struggled with his rear tires and keeping temperatures under control. This triggered an early pit stop, because of how quickly the tire was degrading, and his race became a surprise two-stopper. What effectively decided his race in Italy was Antonelli's DNF and the safety car period this caused, as others pitted but Russell stayed out on older tires. Given that delta, he couldn't hold off Ferrari's charging Lewis Hamilton.
Tire management and hotter temperatures reared their heads again during last weekend's Spanish Grand Prix. Andrew Shovlin, the team's trackside engineering director, revealed in Mercedes' Sunday recap, 'George could have been in the fight for the podium though; his pace looked good enough to close on the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc in the last laps, but with the tires overheating, it was hard for him to get close enough to attempt a pass.' And Russell's start did not help, where he lost multiple positions on the opening lap and had to battle back.
Last year's W15 also struggled with hotter temperatures and tires overheating, thriving at races with cooler temperatures – including Hamilton's win at Silverstone and Russell's in Las Vegas. But it's not clear to Mercedes why its cars continue to struggle with this.
'Every car has an intrinsic DNA and that's dialled into the design,' Wolff said Sunday. 'I think that even though we're large organizations with many scientists and engineers, sometimes you don't know why a car is doing something. I'm not sure McLaren knows exactly why they are so fast because it comes down to just the margin of gains and the detail, and just good engineering.
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'I think that our car, generally, over the years, was struggling more with the rear tire overheating than others.'
Wolff pointed back to the 2024 Las Vegas Grand Prix weekend, where then-Mercedes duo Russell and Hamilton praised the W15 and how much grip that they had at that event, which takes place at night in cool November temperatures. They went on to secure a 1-2 finish. Here other drivers complained about a lack of grip and sliding in the colder temperatures.
'You can mask or make worse (the issue) with setup directions,' Wolff continued, 'but it's something that's in the car.'
While Mercedes is focused on the temperature inconsistency issue, it has made a step forward overall on tire performance over a race stint compared to its struggles at Imola.
'It's not suddenly that we were reeling in McLaren, but it was better,' Wolff said. 'Also against the Ferraris, we didn't look too bad. That was different a week ago (in Monaco). Different two weeks ago (in Imola). So, overall, we need to now analyze the data and see whether we've unlocked a little bit of the potential, solved the problems a little bit.'
Wolff did admit that seeing the positives were difficult, aside from the apparent step in tire management. Fourth place was the maximum that Mercedes could achieve in Barcelona, given the McLarens and Verstappen were battling ahead even before the controversial late safety car restart chaos that also involved Russell.
It is a return to where the team was racing at the beginning of the season, Russell noted. But fully understanding F1's tire fluctuations carries bigger implications that extend beyond this season for Mercedes.
The car design regulations are changing from next season and Wolff reckons tires will be 'an important factor next year.' This is because they will be narrower, which will impact downforce and car handling. This could also require a different approach to tire management.
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But Mercedes' problems actually appear bigger than just tires and temperatures – at least for this season – given the gap to the leaders. The recent reliability woes have been very costly.
Of Antonelli's two DNFs, the one in Imola stemmed from 'a loss of throttle control' and the one in Barcelona was caused by a loss of engine oil pressure. Wolff told F1 TV that 'there was a big bang' when the issue struck and smoke poured out of Antonelli's car as he shot off into the gravel. In Monaco, Russell hit a bump during qualifying and lost electrical power. Then there was also the case of Russell's car malfunctioning alarmingly en route to his second-place finish in Bahrain.
Antonelli's engine failure — Wolff described it as one 'at first sight' — is a cause for concern, given how the power units are a noted strength of Mercedes. After all, there's two-thirds of the season left. Shovlin noted, 'We don't know the root cause of that issue yet; the power unit will be returned to Brixworth for investigation. It's always disappointing to lose a car from the points (Antonelli was running seventh at the time of his retirement) with a reliability issue; we've not been strong enough in that area over the last three races so we will need to tackle that urgently.'
Canada, next up, should shift the W16 back into a more comfortable zone. The race typically features cooler temperatures and sometimes wet conditions. But this will be short lived, with generally hot climes of Austria, Hungary and Monza following either side of F1's summer break. Silverstone can become challenging on tires, especially if there are warmer conditions, given its many high-speed corners and the calendar ends with a run in the Middle Eastern deserts.
It may be the final year of the current engine regulations, but car reliability is a problem that Mercedes needs to address to restore its previous consistently solid form. The margins are also much finer than when the season began and so Mercedes can't afford to slip back, particularly as Leclerc and Ferrari have started emerging as potential 'best of the rest' threats behind the dominant McLaren duo and Verstappen.
(Top image: Mark Thompson / Getty Images)