Mercedes' Imola performance triggers flashbacks and leaves them answerless

17:03, 19 May

byNorberto Mujica

Mercedes' team representative at Imola, Bradley Lord, acknowledges his team's limittions but reveals he does not know what is triggering their regression to 2024-like form.

It wasn't Andrea Kimi Antonelli's DNF that defined Mercedes' Imola weekend as poor, but rather the overall lack of pace as the German team with George Russell failed to make any impression at the front with Alexander Albon's and Carlos Sainz' Williams, for instance, performing better than them throughout the race.

Mercedes took a new front wing to Imola in a bid to add performance to the W16 as quickly as possible, but Lord reveals that the German team now needs to see if somewhere along the lines they've missed the plot in terms of development, he stated to media like GPblog after the race.

"In terms of feedback on the upgrades it's been relatively transparent so far through the weekend. And obviously now with the race data as well, we need to go back through that and understand what has been the effect of the different things that we've changed, if any of that has in any way potentially triggered a worsening of the race pace."

"We don't think so at this stage, but obviously we need to be open-minded given that we weren't competitive this afternoon. So that would be something we're looking at and then making the relevant decisions from there."

Formula 1 World Championship 2025, Round 7, Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari, Imola, Italy, Sunday 18 May 2025 - George Russell (GBR) Mercedes AMG F1 W16.

Mercedes still to overcome years-long limitation

Rear overheating has been a Mercedes limitation since the inception and implementation of the ground effect rules, something their 2025 campaign continues to be marred by, notes Lord.

"I think in general we've seen a performance improvement overall from the car in terms of its overall pace but that still remains our biggest limitation. This weekend is a slightly different thing to what we've seen at other races."

"[Though] it is tyre overheating, it's more [that] you hit the top of the acceptable and usable window of the tyre quicker than other cars that seem able to run faster for longer before they're either capped by the sort of upper end of the working range or simply don't get there and are able to exploit their full pace for much longer."

Lord then concedes the German team has been unable to keep their 2024 issues in the W15 from spilling over in the W16. "That's what we've got to understand. It clearly is a continuation of a trend from last year, albeit there will be subtle differences in there as well."

"That's the sort of high priority for us to understand and work on so that we can start racing as we have done at points this season and generally in slightly cooler conditions start racing in the same sort of neighborhood as we're qualifying in," acknowledging that Mercedes' performance still depends on specific temperature levels to be able to be exploited.