Mercedes ‘uncover’ early W16 breakthrough with rare F1 2025 headstart

George Russell has revealed that Mercedes have “uncovered a few things” for next year’s W16 car after making a headstart on their F1 2025 preparations during Formula 1’s autumn break.

The F1 2024 season is resuming at this weekend’s United States Grand Prix in Austin, Texas, after a rare three-week break following the last race in Singapore.

George Russell reveals Mercedes W16 headstart during autumn break

Additional reporting by Elizabeth Blackstock

Unlike the summer shutdown held in August, teams were able to work as normal during the recent break in the hope of finishing strongly across the last six races of the current campaign and establishing a strong platform for next season.

Having been restricted to just a single race win across 2022/23, Mercedes have enjoyed a respectable F1 2024 with Russell collecting his second career victory in Austria and team-mate Lewis Hamilton triumphing in Britain and Belgium.

Mercedes have introduced a six-part upgrade package at the Circuit of The Americas this weekend, featuring modifications to the floor, front wing and suspension.

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With F1 2025 set to be the final year of the current rules cycle ahead of the major 2026 regulation changes, teams will face the challenge of balancing present and future development next season.

And Russell has revealed that Mercedes managed to make a headstart on the W16 during the autumn break, which allowed the team to “take a step back” and establish a development path for F1 2025.

He told media including PlanetF1.com in Austin: “Obviously we reverted with the [previous] upgrades that we brought to Spa.

“So effectively we’re making two steps now when we bring this upgrade, so we’re hoping it’s going to have quite an impact.

“I think these three weeks off have been great because it’s allowed us all to take a step back and reassess the car as a whole – also looking into next year.

“We’ve definitely uncovered a few things that we want to be changing going into next year.

“And when you’re in the midst of a season, you sometimes don’t have that opportunity to really dig deep into the fundamentals of the car, so that’s been really positive to see.

“But I hope with the upgrade we can be in the fight again, at least in qualifying, and fighting for those top four places and then in the race fighting for a podium.

“But realistically, we know McLaren and Lando [Norris] are a good step ahead of everyone right now.”

Asked if Mercedes expect the United States GP upgrade to form the basis of the W16, Russell pointed to the example of the 2021 season when the team ended development of their current car early to focus on making a good start to the new rules in 2022.

However, that plan backfired when the team struggled to adjust to the ground-effect rules with Red Bull emerging as F1’s dominant force with Max Verstappen.

Russell said: “I don’t think so.

“I think if you look at 2021, Mercedes stopped developing that year’s car and focused on the ’22 car very early, whereas Red Bull continued to develop their ’21 car.

“And by the end of that season, Mercedes were the quickest car. And then you went into ’22, then Red Bull were the quickest car.

“So we’re going to have to assess, come the start of next year, how much you continue to develop the ’25 car.

“But ultimately it’s like digging for gold: for the ’26 regulations you’re digging, but you don’t know if you’re digging in the right places.

“And ultimately, when you start and you drive the car for the first time, that’s when people are going to start making the biggest gains.”

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