Mercedes accused of copying Red Bull as new design appears at F1 Bahrain testing

A design feature on Mercedes’ new W16 has “been borrowed” from last year’s Red Bull, it has been claimed.

Every F1 2025 car is in action at the three-day F1 Bahrain pre-season test this week.

Among the countless technical tweaks in the 10 garages is a subtle change to the Mercedes that is now driven by Andrea Kimi Antonelli.

As rookie Antonelli pitted, and his engineers worked on his car’s front left brake drum, Sky Sports’ Ted Kravitz was able to notice something intriguing.

Mercedes F1 2025 car borrows a Red Bull design

“We’ve talked in the past about people taking design cues from Mercedes,” Kravitz said from the edge of their garage.

“I don’t know whether we should call this the black and silver Red Bull? Because they have certainly taken some design cues from Red Bull.

“They have taken it to a more extreme level.

“Beneath the wing mirror, where it says Petronas, you can see that one of the sidepod air intakes is the vertical one that Red Bull brought to their car last year.

“Look at the overbite, not the underbite that Red Bull started a couple of years ago, but an overbite where the top of the sidepod air intake extrudes over the bottom lip.

“Look at how extreme it is on this Mercedes.

“It’s a different design to what Mercedes had last year. They have borrowed it from Red Bull, that’s definitely fair to say.

“There are some other design cues around this car which make it look like last year’s Red Bull.

“They have stayed with the push rod suspension, which is something that Ferrari and Red Bull do not have.”

The more significant change at Mercedes is, of course, the presence of Antonelli in the car where Lewis Hamilton previously was.

Antonelli took charge of Mercedes’ running on the first morning of F1 Bahrain pre-season testing, after his lengthy mileage in various specs of his new team’s machines to prepare him for this season.

Hamilton was on track at the same time testing his Ferrari.