The W16 has been described by James Allison, Mercedes’ Technical Director, as having a focus on “making improvements in the areas that held us back last year”. One such area was the W15’s inability to turn its tyres on in certain conditions, with it particularly thriving in the cold or wet conditions seen at tracks like Silverstone, Belgium and Las Vegas.

Allison also describes the changes to be aimed at “dialling out the W15’s slight reluctance to turn in slow corners”, or understeer, a characteristic that the team seemed to have looked to address with an early season front wing upgrade in 2024.

In addressing these issues, the team say they’ve made changes to “every aerodynamic surface” along with changes “under the skin” – so how is it visually different to the W15?

The sidepods are one area that look to be different. The W15’s sidepods were quite linear in shape from front to rear, and while this shape has been retained to a degree over the top surface, the undercut may bulge more in the middle, just behind the ‘P’ of ‘Petronas’ on the livery.

The front of the sidepod is where real change looks to have been made, including to the inlet. The team have adopted a significant overbite that has been seen throughout the field so far this year and, in these renderings at least, do not have a horizontal part to the sidepod inlet. Instead the inlet is much lower, further back and a thin vertical rectangle which is a stark difference to the higher backwards-P shape of 2024.

Continuing with cooling and the team have a few outlets open on the engine cover, but as outlined in green on the image above, this panel looks to be interchangeable as you’d expect the quantity and size of these to change per track conditions over the year.

Rearwards on the engine cover and the cooling cannons have been tightened up behind these outlets into the thinner ‘shoulder’ style we saw from teams like Red Bull at points of last year, and have seen from Aston Martin this year too.

The nose is also more squared off than the W15’s and appears to connect with the leading element of the front wing, even if it doesn’t pick up that leading edge exactly, which is in contrast with the W15’s second element pick up.

The design of the front wing itself looks largely similar to later specifications of the W15’s – but there may be subtle changes to cord width and length that will become more apparent as it heads out on track.

Mercedes also say in their press release that the front suspension is new, but it remains as a push-rod layout. The position of the wishbones may have changed, but these alterations will also become more apparent as new images are released.

There are more subtle differences too, such as a new winglet/turning vane of sorts inside the front wheels (circled in green above) and a shallower ‘shark-fin’ over the spine of the engine cover than was seen on the W15 (outlined in red).

Toto Wolff, Mercedes CEO and Team Principal, says the team have “made gains in the off-season” but “will only know where [they] stand come the first race in Australia”. Their first inkling of the W16’s performance and characteristics will come on Tuesday however, as it takes to the Bahrain International Circuit for a shakedown.