Mercedes F1 2025 launch plan breaks with long-time tradition

Mercedes will break what was a near-perfect nine-year tradition with the launch of its 2025 W16 Formula 1 car.

Apart from the Covid-impacted build-up to the 2021 campaign, every season since 2017 Mercedes has revealed its new F1 challenger at Silverstone ahead of a first shakedown.

This time around, however, the Brackley-based team will be holding a digital-only launch with the release of images of its new car on February 24.

The following day, the car will conduct its first shakedown test at the Bahrain circuit, ahead of official pre-season testing that takes place at the Sakhir circuit from February 26-28.

Mercedes has long favoured getting a launch twinned with a shakedown test at Silverstone, as the Northamptonshire-venue is just down the road from its factory so it is ideal for getting on top of any early niggling problems.

The only time Mercedes steered clear of doing that in recent history was back in 2021, when it realised it wasn't the best thing to do after a troubled first day of testing for its challenger in Bahrain.

Valtteri Bottas only managed to complete six laps of running on the opening morning of pre-season testing that year thanks to a gearbox problem, with team-mate Lewis Hamilton not getting as much mileage as he wanted that afternoon.

Reflecting on the situation at the time, Bottas said Mercedes had learned its lesson.

“It’s very easy to say it afterwards but of course, now, yes, we would have done it [the shakedown] before," said the Finn.

“But in recent years everything has been pretty much bulletproof and certain things have already been run in the dyno, etc. Yes, we can say that now and I’m sure it will be reviewed for next year.”

The decision by Mercedes to change plans this year has partly been prompted by the timing of the F1 official launch in London, which teams have had to work logistics around.

Full 2025 launch plan here.

Mercedes plans to reveal its definitive 2025 livery on an old car at the F1 O2 launch in London on February 18.

So far, Williams and Ferrari appear to be the only teams hosting separate official 2025 car launches this year.

Full 2025 F1 car launch schedule so far