Explained: Key car concepts in garages of McLaren, Ferrari, Red Bull, Mercedes

F1’s front-running teams have displayed some potentially game-changing innovations to their cars at 2025 pre-season testing.

McLaren, Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes have all made differing decisions to iron out the unique flaws on their machines ahead of the new season.

Those fundamental tweaks and concept designs have been noticeable at pre-season testing in Bahrain.

McLaren

“It’s a sensible car, an aggressive car,” Sky Sports’ Ted Kravitz reported from outside their garage in Bahrain.

“Basically a more aggressive version of last year’s car.

“It looks like they’ve made progress. It looks like they’re making the best car, in terms of the constructors’ championship last year, even better.

“They worked on slow speed corners, high speed corners, and making the car quicker in the DRS.

“The front of the car doesn’t look dramatically different but the rear is nicely packaged.

“From the front? Other teams are doing different things with their design but McLaren look like they’re making the best package - which won the last race at Abu Dhabi in 2024 - even better.”

Ferrari

“Lewis Hamilton is happy with the car, he says they’ve got the ingredients to be a winning team and challenge for the championship,” Kravitz said while studying the SF-25.

“It’s a completely new car. The suspension is rethought completely.

“They’ve gone from a push rod suspension to a pull rod suspension.

“They felt like they’d hit the ceiling with what they had before, so they’ve gone down a completely new mechanical concept.

“Will that mean it takes time to get it sorted out? Maybe. In that time, will McLaren win races? Maybe.

“Or, will Ferrari get on top of their new design early enough to win in Melbourne?”

Red Bull

“Talking about teams going down the wrong route then reversing out, that’s exactly what has happened at Red Bull Racing,” Kravitz said as he looked at the RB21.

“They have abandoned the RB20 which caused Max Verstappen so many issues with understeer, and not having a good balance.

“They reversed out of that cul-de-sac and have gone down a new path in terms of trying to get the car to be more predictable.

“Will it push them back a bit? Yes. But it could lead, later on, to a better car than they had last season, a happier Verstappen and Liam Lawson, so they could challenge for wins later on.”

Mercedes

“Fourth time lucky on the ground-effect rules for Mercedes? Surely they’ve got it right this time,” wondered Kravitz as he studied the W16.

“They didn’t get it right in 2022, 2023 or 2024.

“They tried to address the reluctance of their car turning into slow corners, and calming down the randomness of their tyres working in the right temperatures or not, which saw them winning races some weekends and touching the midfield in others.”