- Close
Senior Writer, F1
Toto Wolff proclaimed the start of "an exciting new era" for his Mercedes team as it launched its 2025 car, the W16, on Monday.
Mercedes is going into its first season without Lewis Hamilton since 2012 after the seven-time champion opted to switch to Ferrari over the winter.
Italian rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli, 18, has replaced Hamilton and will race alongside George Russell, who is set for his fourth season at Mercedes.
"We open an exciting new era in the story of our team and Mercedes-AMG motorsport in 2025," team principal Wolff said.
"We are building on the incredible legacy of our heritage, and we can't wait to go racing.
"We have an exciting line-up to help us achieve our objectives. Both drivers have progressed through our junior programme and that is a vindication of our commitment to both supporting and developing talent."
The car, which will hit the track for the first time during a filming day on Tuesday in Bahrain, was presented in the livery Mercedes revealed at F1's season launch event last week.
It no longer features red Ineos branding on the airbox, but the chemical company remains a 33% shareholder in the team as well as a main partner.
Russell and Antonelli will be looking to improve on Mercedes' 2024 campaign, which saw the team score four wins across the season but finish fourth in the constructors' championship.
The W16 features changes to every aerodynamic surface as well as revised front suspension to address the shortcomings of last year's W15.
"Being the fourth year of these regulations on the chassis side, the cars are in the more mature phase," technical director James Allison said. "Big gains in lap time are harder to come by but we've been concentrating on making improvements in the areas that held us back last year.
"Our primary focus has been on dialling out the W15's slight reluctance to turn in slow corners, along with the imbalance in tyre temperatures that made the car inconsistent from session to session."
Allison said he expects F1's field to be even more competitive this season ahead of a major overhaul of the technical regulations in 2026.
"It will be a fiercely fought championship from the off," Allison added. "At this stage of the regulations, the cars are converging in terms of performance.
"There will be multiple winners, and it's possible that we will see even more teams than the four that scored victories last year taking to the top step of the podium."
F1's track action begins in Bahrain this week, with three days of testing from Feb. 26-28. The first race of the season takes place in Australia on Mar. 16.