Mercedes AMG-PETRONAS technical director James Allison shared important insights and updates as the F1 season returns to the famous European circuits. With six rounds already completed of the 2025 season, Mercedes managed to keep up with McLaren, and the second position in the Constructors Championship shows that well.
Both drivers proved their talent with amazing performances in the Miami Grand Prix. While the team’s rookie, Kimi Antonelli, claimed his first pole position during Sprint Qualifying, George Russell showed off his racing abilities by finishing off Sunday’s race in P3. This achievement put the Briton in 4th for the Drivers Championship, at a 6-point advantage over Ferrari’s Leclerc.
Future upgrades
The fans noticed a slight lack of updates from Mercedes in terms of upgrades as the F1 season progressed. For this reason, questions came up, and everyone is getting quite nervous watching the gap McLaren put between themselves and the rest of the grid. However, James Allison made sure to explain that there was no lack of upgrades. In fact, he foreshadowed some bigger upgrades coming soon, which will hopefully give Mercedes a better fighting chance:
“Yeah, we have actually been bringing upgrades, they’re not particularly sort of enormous or sexy, but they’ve been coming in a steady trickle. There’s some that will be more obvious to the outside world in the next handful of races, and with a bit of luck, they’ll improve our fortunes.”
Additionally, the technical director spoke up about the hardships the teams faced as a result of the fast pace of the season. He also mentioned the work Mercedes will put in to make sure the tyre temperature issues can find a solution:
“But this has been a very…, we’re a quarter of the way through the season already, it’s been coming at the teams hard and fast. It’s actually quite difficult to get upgrades to the car when the races are coming at you in this sort of machine gun fashion.
“So yeah, hopefully the ones that happen in the next two or three races will move the dial a bit for us, and also as we will continue to try to work on the tyre temperature in the races that will also improve our fortunes.”
Tyre problems in race pace
The handful of races that took place so far in the F1 season showed Mercedes AMG at a great disadvantage when it comes to the longer race format, with no concrete updates. Until now, when James Allison addressed the inconsistency between qualifying and race pace. The technical director stated that the overheating issues the Mercedes faces during a race can cause the drivers to have to slow down. Nevertheless, it is a problem that the team is aware of and actively trying to improve:
“We’re finding it pretty straightforward to get the tyres very happy for a single lap. Happy and balanced front to rear, that tends to mean that the drivers are confident to lean on the car in qualifying.
“But come the race, we are running the tyres or the tyres are running hotter than we would wish, meaning that the drivers have to then slow down to manage the tyre temperatures, but obviously slowing down is not really top of the list of things you want to do in a racing car.”
