Mercedes identifies key ambition for fresh F1 upgrades

Mercedes is aiming to translate its strong one-lap qualifying pace into a faster race car with its next batch of F1 upgrades.

The Brackley team has enjoyed its strongest start to a season in the ground-effects era in 2025, with 141 points and four podiums from the opening six races to sit second in the standings as the season heads back to Europe, with Kimi Antonelli also taking Sprint pole in Miami.

Teams often deliver big upgrade packages once the early fly-away races are completed, with Mercedes technical director James Allison explaining the delay for the team in not delivering a sizeable package, as he outlined the aims of the upcoming parts.

"We have actually been bringing upgrades, they're not particularly enormous or sexy, but they've been coming in a steady trickle," he explained.

"There's some that will be more obvious to the outside world in the next handful of races. With a bit of luck, they'll improve our fortunes. 

"We're a quarter of the way through the season already. It's been coming at the teams hard and fast. It's quite difficult to get upgrades to the car when the races are coming at you in this sort of fashion.

"Hopefully, the ones that happen in the next two or three races will move the dial a bit for us, we will also continue to try to work on the tyre temperature in the races, that will also improve our fortunes.

"We've been pretty strong in qualifying for the first several races, I think we can expect to have an ok shout of getting the car reasonably well up the grid in qualifying.

"With a bit of luck, the upgrades might make that a bit better still.

" But the main thing we'll be focusing on is trying to get that race pace under control, trying to make sure that we deliver on the promise of our Saturdays on the Sunday.

"The majority of that will be about controlling the temperature of those tyres and making sure the car can therefore use the pace that's in it."