> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.the-race.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Gary Anderson's initial verdict on upgraded Mercedes - URL: https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/first-clues-major-mercedes-f1-upgrade-at-sepang/ - Published: 2026-10-01T14:39:59.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-01T16:02:06.000Z - Description: The upgraded Mercedes (briefly) emerged in the Sepang pitlane - here's ex-F1 technical director Gary Anderson's early verdict on it - Author: Gary Anderson - Tags: Formula 1, #mercedes, #primary_homepage_feature We’ve waited a long time for Mercedes to introduce a major Formula 1 upgrade package, with the last coming in Canada way back in May. Finally, the first sightings of it have appeared in the Sepang paddock ahead of practice day for the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia. You could say that with its performance level, Mercedes hasn’t needed a major upgrade package. Yes, the others have closed the gap a bit, but even in Azerbaijan last weekend it was still the team that put it all together when it mattered most. Sometimes, updates are not just about improving the performance relative to the others; they are about giving yourself confidence that under a given set of regulations you really do understand what makes a car tick. When we had the ground-effect regs from 2022 to 2025, this is what Mercedes struggled with. Now it’s time to prove to itself, and in turn everyone else, that this year’s car performance wasn’t simply down to luck. The update is understood to comprise changes to all the body surfaces bar the front/rear wings. However, more importantly, the expectation is it should be worth around 0.3 seconds per lap. That’s something that the other teams will be hoping is just a pipedream. So let’s take a look at what we saw of the car when it very briefly appeared in the pitlane on Thursday. Starting with the bargeboard area, the horizontal vanes are more or less the same, with just a small kink in the upper element’s forward section, which is highlighted in cyan. This is to allow for the addition of a vertical section, highlighted in green, to help manage and realign the front-wheel wake turbulence. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dd/af/ddafbd99-2ccd-468c-b622-4b3cccf80b49/content/images/2026/10/highlighted-comparison-front-floor-and-floor-boards-Mercedes-Sepang.jpg) This turbulence is generated when the airflow tries to fill the void behind the front tyre. It is detrimental to the airflow structure to the leading edge of the underfloor and the sidepod undercut. The support stay profile, highlighted in magenta, has also been changed and is now more sympathetic to the flow structure in that area. It looks like Mercedes has altered the profile of the vanes (also highlighted in green) at the leading edge of the floor. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dd/af/ddafbd99-2ccd-468c-b622-4b3cccf80b49/content/images/2026/10/highlighted-comparison-upper-view-body-Mercedes-Sepang--3-.jpg) As Mercedes says, it has changed the majority of the body surfaces. The sidepod changes are highlighted in magenta and the engine cover in green. For me, both of these changes are to move the car’s cross-sectional area further forward, or at least reduce its cross-sectional area just in front of the rear tyres. You can’t do much with the blockage and, in turn, air displacement created by the tyres, but you can help allow for it by altering the position of the car’s actual body displacement. Doing that alters the airflow velocity from even before the leading edge of the front wing to well behind the trailing edge of the rear wing. The cross-sectional area is the amount of air that has to be displaced by the car travelling through the air. As F1 is an open-wheel formula, the blockage of the tyres is something that is a prime mover in the overall car concept and layout. Body details in front of and behind the tyres can influence that displaced airflow. That is what these vanes and ducts on the flat floor area do. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dd/af/ddafbd99-2ccd-468c-b622-4b3cccf80b49/content/images/2026/10/highlighted-comparison-floor-edge-Mercedes-Sepang.jpg) The different colours show the differences, but the changes are small, basically just a major tidy-up and repositioning of what Mercedes already had. I suppose you can’t expect much more from a car that has had 11 grand prix poles and wins already in 2026. The big question is: will Mercedes deliver that expected 0.3s per lap improvement? It’s always difficult from the outside to quantify any level of improvement. Based on its performance so far this year, if it doesn’t lock out the front row in qualifying and finish first and second in the race, we can assume that Mercedes has fallen short of those expectations.