Mercedes believes a "significant change" in the approach it has taken with its new Formula 1 car can help it avoid a trap it has fallen into in recent years.
The team is coming off the back of a 2024 F1 season that, despite a run of wins, did not live up to expectations as George Russell and Lewis Hamilton battled a car that struggled with inconsistent handling and overheated its rear tyres too much.
It marked the third consecutive frustrating campaign for Mercedes, which has failed to fully get on top of the ground effect generation of cars that came into play from 2022.
Ahead of the final year of the current rules set before the regulations overhaul coming for 2026, Russell has opened up on a different approach that the team is taking with its revised W15.
"It's going to be a significant change this year," he said. "It's like every year we've uncovered a problem, we've solved it and it's created a new one. And we've probably been a lot more disciplined with every change we've made.
"We have been more thorough than ever in terms of the simulator running, just to ensure we're not going to fall into a new trap. So far it's a reasonable step, but you've got no idea what everyone else is doing."
Pushed to elaborate on what he meant by a "trap", Russell said the mistake Mercedes had made previously was obsessing on curing specific problems – without considering negatives that could emerge as unintended consequences.
"I think in the last couple of years, we've been so focused on solving the problem that we weren't looking ahead to what future issues it would cause," he said.
"It's like you solve one thing and then it creates a new problem. So we've been forward-thinking much more than we have done in the past.
"That's quite normal in the world of aero - when you're developing in the windtunnel.
"But when you're changing characteristics of the car and how it's going to handle, and how it's going to feel for us driving it... if you make the front stronger, it's going to take away from the rear, and if you go too far that's just as much of a problem as if it's in the opposite direction.
"So I think it's really being thorough. Saying 'right, these are the fundamental changes we're going to make, we think it's going to do X, is that going to be a problem at these races? And if so, how are we going to drive around it?'"
As to why Mercedes had not responded to this problematic trap in the past, Russell believes that it fell foul of the overbearing impact that porpoising had on its car three years ago.
"I think in 2022 there were more issues with the car than first met the eye," he said.
"Everything was dominated by bouncing, and we couldn't unpick what was bouncing and what were poor characteristics within the car. So it took a good 18 months to solve bouncing.
"Then we recognised we had a bit of a problem with the suspension, so we changed the suspension, then that caused a balance problem.
"These things, it does just take time. When something clicks and something works, you sometimes also don't quite know why that is."
While Russell hopes that the big changes Mercedes has made will result in some progress on track, he equally knows it will take until the W16 tests in Bahrain for the first time next week to truly know that there has been an improvement.
"I think within five laps you know if you're in for a good season or not, and we've known within the first five laps of the last couple of years that we wouldn't be fighting for the championship, or we knew we wouldn't be fighting at the beginning of the season," he said.
"I feel that it's been much more robust this season. All of the teams are so competitive now, and everyone knows the limitation that they've had over these last three years. If we bring the performance we expect, it should be a good step forward.
"But we've seen it with many other teams, they bring an upgrade and it doesn't work. There's never guarantees."
