Mercedes will introduce a major upgrade package from the Malaysian Grand Prix on 2-4 October, trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin has confirmed. The update marks the team’s first significant development step since the Canadian Grand Prix in May, and it arrives at a point where Mercedes’ early-season form has clearly cooled.
Mercedes is the only team among the current top four not to have brought a major package during the European leg of the calendar. Rivals have kept refining their cars race after race through the summer months. Mercedes has waited, and that wait now has an end date.
Mercedes Confirm Major Upgrade Scheduled for Malaysian Grand Prix
The upgrade has been the subject of paddock speculation for weeks, but Shovlin has now put a firm date on it. Malaysia, on 2-4 October, is when the new parts land on the car.
It follows a pattern familiar to anyone who watched Mercedes dominate the opening stretch of the season. The team won the first six grands prix of the year and secured pole position at each of the first ten rounds. Since then, results have levelled off. Mercedes has won four of the last eight races, a healthy return but a clear step down from that early run.
“And then the updates, well, they’re going to come Malaysia onwards and hopefully we’ll make a decent step,” Shovlin said, setting expectations for what the package needs to deliver once it arrives.
Andrew Shovlin Outlines Development Timeline and Qualifying Hopes
Shovlin was careful not to oversell what the upgrade will achieve. He knows supporters remember the early-season dominance, and he isn’t promising a return to that level straight away.
“I don’t think we’re going to be out front by miles, but hopefully we’ll be back into a position where we can really go into qualifying, knowing that we’re fighting for pole,” he said. That’s a realistic target rather than a guarantee, and it reflects how tight the field has become.
He contrasted that outlook with how the team felt earlier in the year. “Early in the season, we tended to go thinking, we have a car that if we do a really good job, it should be on pole,” Shovlin said. “We should be fighting for a race win. Whereas now the margin between finishing first and finishing sixth is one or two tenths and it’s difficult to predict because Monza is a unique track.”
European Development Lag Hits Mercedes Qualifying Supremacy
Those fine margins explain why the timeline matters so much to Mercedes fans. The team hasn’t had the outright fastest car in qualifying since Andrea Kimi Antonelli took pole at the Belgian Grand Prix, a run of races that has coincided with rivals bringing fresh parts while Mercedes worked to its own schedule.
It’s a stretch that has tested the squad, including through recent track incidents in Madrid. Team principal Toni Kalenchits and Toto Wolff have both stressed a cautious approach to championship expectations even while Antonelli leads the drivers’ standings, and Shovlin’s comments fit that same pattern of managing hopes carefully rather than making bold claims.
Despite the lack of new parts, Mercedes has still shown flashes of raw pace, including strong practice pace in Madrid that hinted at what the car can still do on its day. Shovlin pointed to Monza as an example of the current car working well. “So the car was good in Monza, hopefully it will work well in Baku. But, you need a car that can have a good straight line speed,” he said.
Next Steps for Baku Ahead of October Malaysian Upgrade
Before Malaysia, Mercedes still has to negotiate Baku with the current specification. Shovlin was direct about the lack of new parts for that race. “We haven’t got much new coming to Baku, but actually that’s a circuit that’s more about drag than downforce,” he said.
He explained why the street circuit poses a different challenge to Monza’s high-speed layout. “There’s other things, though, you need in Baku, like the sort of street circuit nature, almost that Monaco-esque being able to deal with the low speed, keeping all the wheels on the ground,” Shovlin said.
He also drew a comparison with Madrid’s new circuit, underlining how varied the recent run of tracks has been for the engineering team. “It needs a car that’s quite slippy with low drag and then new circuit like Madring couldn’t be more different. But we just focus on getting the most out of the car and if we win, awesome,” he said.
Crash.net first revealed the team’s update timeline, and Mercedes will now look to navigate Baku on the existing package before the Malaysian weekend brings the step Shovlin has promised. Whether it’s enough to close the gap in qualifying will become clear once the new parts are on the car.
