Analysis: Where Mercedes is missing out to McLaren in F1 2025

2025's Formula 1 supertimes currently make for interesting reading and, despite a relatively small sample size, Mercedes just edges ahead of Red Bull to have the second-fastest car of the year so far – 0.345% short of McLaren. Red Bull (or rather, Max Verstappen) is just another 0.008% behind.

It's been an encouraging start to 2025 for Mercedes, as the early indications are that its car is much less capricious than last year's model – but George Russell nonetheless asserted that the McLarens were "a smidge quicker than us at a few crucial points" – and only Lando Norris' brake issue brought his countryman closer towards the end.

The 'working window' of the Mercedes seems to be larger and drop-off with tyre wear also appears reduced, although there have been few circuits to entirely test that theory. That said, Russell was among one of the first drivers to predict a transition to the one-stop; evidently, tyre wear looked good on the W16.

The car is also benign enough for Andrea Kimi Antonelli to grow into his debut year, with rookie mistakes having largely been kept to a minimum so far.

But the W16 still paled in keeping life in the tyres versus McLaren, and this is the key weakness that Russell has identified from his opening two races with the team.

"I think their strength is probably in tyre management," Russell said. "We saw the one-stop was pretty comfortable.

"Let's see when we go to a circuit where it's much more overheating, like we saw in Melbourne on the intermediate tyres or like we saw in Bahrain testing. They were even stronger."

George Russell, Mercedes

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

In comparing Russell's China race stints with winner Oscar Piastri's, there's a difference on the medium tyre of around 0.2-0.6s per lap and at around 0.1-0.5s (excluding anomalies) on the hard tyre. Russell's battling with Norris at the start of each stint may also have put a little bit of premature wear into the tyre.

Compare that to qualifying, and there really was very little between McLaren and Mercedes. In reality, Russell was up on Piastri's final lap before the Australian found time with the "hairpin of my life". Had Piastri not punched that lap in, his earlier lap would still have been good enough – but by only 0.02s.

The gap will naturally extend in a race as the effect of tyre management builds a snowball effect, and Mercedes will hope that any changes it makes to the W16 will mitigate the lap-by-lap advantage that McLaren gains.

"They’re the team to beat right now and we’re confident we can bring some performance, but they’re really doing an amazing job," Russell explained.

"We need to keep on scoring. The last two races, or the three races with the sprint as well – the result we achieved was the maximum in all three.

"That gives me a lot of satisfaction. And if we do deliver a car that is capable of fighting McLaren, I’ve no doubt we can finish ahead, because we’re doing such a solid job as a team."