James Allison Bemoans Mercedes Lack Of Tyre Mastery In 2025

James Allison has pinpointed tyre 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 realise that this is a world championship about who can best control tyre temperatures.

“And that’s certainly not us.”

Allison said modern ground-effect cars and reduced tyre 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 tyres… In conjunction with ground-effect cars, which place significantly more demands on the tyres in high-speed corners, the thermal stress will be greater than in the past.”

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

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

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

“Tyre 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 tyres 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.”