Reporting note: this article draws on Sky Sports; PGLive provides the summary and editorial framing.
Mercedes Austin upgrades go to both cars
Mercedes have confirmed Kimi Antonelli and George Russell will both run the team's latest-specification car at this weekend's United States Grand Prix. The Mercedes Austin upgrades end a two-round split in which only one W17 carried the new aerodynamic package.
The package was long-awaited and its debut in Malaysia earlier this month was problematic. In Singapore, Antonelli ran the upgrade alone while Russell reverted to the pre-Sepang specification, giving the team a direct on-track comparison rather than a simulation.
What the Singapore split showed
Russell carried a grid penalty into the Singapore main race, which shaped the decision to keep him on the older car. Antonelli began that Sprint weekend behind his team-mate on pace but improved as the sessions went on and finished third in the race.
Toto Wolff said afterwards the team were leaning towards running both cars with the new specification in Austin. He has now confirmed it in Mercedes' event preview. "Malaysia and Singapore were difficult weekends for us and we have worked hard to understand where we fell short," Wolff said. "Austin gives us an opportunity to respond. We will run our latest update package on both cars as we continue to develop the car."
Wolff also noted the field is "incredibly close" and that Mercedes must keep moving forward to fight consistently at the front in the closing stages of the season. Six rounds remain.
Antonelli's title arithmetic
Antonelli can clinch his maiden Drivers' Championship as early as Sunday. The required combination: he wins, Russell fails to finish in the top eight, and Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton is not in the top four.
Mercedes lead Ferrari by 134 points in the Constructors' Championship. That gap means the team could be in a title-winning position for the teams' crown as early as next week's Mexico City Grand Prix.
Max Verstappen won in both Malaysia and Singapore for Red Bull, so Mercedes have not challenged for victory in either of the past two rounds. The upgrade call is therefore a performance question, not a procedural one.
Why running both cars matters
A split specification gives a team correlation data but costs both drivers. One car runs a known baseline, the other absorbs the risk of a package that has not yet been mapped across a full weekend. Mercedes chose that trade in Singapore. In Austin they stop hedging.
The risk is mechanical and specific: a new floor or bodywork shifts the car's balance window, and drivers rebuild braking points and steering inputs around it. Russell's feedback on the older car now has to be reconciled with Antonelli's data from the upgrade.
Mercedes' 134-point cushion in the constructors' table buys tolerance for that risk. A team defending a smaller margin might have kept the split for another round. Antonelli's third place in Singapore, arriving as his competitiveness improved through the event, is the trend the team will want repeated on the new specification.
Livery change and the triple-header
Mercedes will run a revised livery for the second time in three races in Austin. Blue is added to the W17s to highlight the car company's MANUFAKTUR personalisation programme.
Wolff described the weekend as the start of "another demanding triple-header". "There is plenty at stake, but we won't get ahead of ourselves," he said. "The priority is the weekend in front of us: execute well, maximise our performance and take each race as it comes."
The original report was published by skysports.com.
