MERCEDES STARTS 2020 WITH DOMINATION AND INNOVATION
As you read this, the second pre-season test of Formula 1 2020 will be well under way at Barcelona – more laps, more data, more stories. But what happened over last week’s opening test is well worth recalling. The story of the season began and the initial themes of the campaign emerged. When it all concludes in Abu Dhabi at the end of season, the tales told throughout the year will trace back to those sunny three days in Spain.
For Mercedes, 2020 couldn’t really have started any better. It completed the highest number of laps, with its engines doing likewise ahead of the Ferrari, Renault and Honda totals, and it set the two fastest times with Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton. It was quite a turnaround from the same test a year ago, when Mercedes looked like it had work to do compared to its rivals.
Mercedes wasn’t just dominant in terms of times and statistics. The W11 has enough innovation to mark an apparently serious step forward in a year when the regulations are stable from the one just gone, and ahead of a revolutionary change coming for 2021.
“The temptation for us was just to keep polishing [the W10] – after all, it finished the season really strongly and it was developing very fast all the way through the year, so there was still lots of opportunity to make that one quicker,” says Mercedes technical director James Allison.
