F1 News: Allison admits Mercedes lacks tire mastery in 2025

(GMM) James Allison (pictured) has pinpointed tire management as the key weakness behind Mercedes’ erratic 2025 form – and the area where dominant McLaren has a clear edge.

“We’re in a yo-yo effect between winning on our own merits and having bad weekends like we had in Austria and England,” the Mercedes technical director told Auto Motor und Sport. “You don’t have to be a great expert to realize that this is a world championship about who can best control tire temperatures.

“And that’s certainly not us.”

Allison said modern ground-effect cars and reduced tire preheating have made the challenge even harder to model.

“Two things are converging that make it more difficult today than before,” he explained. “One is the limited preheating of the tires In conjunction with ground-effect cars, which place significantly more demands on the tires in high-speed corners, the thermal stress will be greater than in the past.”

He also warned that limited testing and incomplete tire data mean teams are flying blind on key parameters.

“The rules prevent us from understanding tires better. We’re hardly allowed to test them,” said Allison. “The only way to better understand tire behavior empirically is through Grand Prix weekends. But there are many other things to do.”

Ferrari boss Frederic Vasseur agrees tires are the central issue in 2025.

“Tire management is not just the deciding factor for the 2025 season, but it’s a 25-year-old problem,” said Vasseur. “Whoever can get the tires into the best working window the fastest and keep them there has an even more significant impact when the field is as close together as it is today.”

“And that’s precisely where McLaren’s big advantage lies.”