Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, W11 launch, Silverstone, 2020

First pictures: New Mercedes W11 debuts at Silverstone

2020 F1 season

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The new Mercedes W11 has run for the first time at Silverstone.

Valtteri Bottas put the first laps on the team’s 2020 challenger at the home of the British Grand Prix. Reigning world champion Lewis Hamilton took over the team’s first new chassis later in the day.

The team’s technical director James Allison said that although the technical rules remain largely unchanged compared to last year, the team has made some fundamental changes to its successful 2019 design to ensure it has scope for development this year.

“The regulations stayed largely the same for the new year, so for us it was all about trying to make sure that we don’t run out of development steam on a package that worked pretty well
for us last year,” he said. “If we had continued merely to add flourishes to the 2019 baseline, we would have found some gains, but in all likelihood diminishing returns would be kicking in by now.

“We wanted to change aspects of the concept of the car – aspects that would be completely impossible to change within a season – to give us a more fertile platform for the new season. We tried to make a few well-chosen architectural changes to keep the development slope strong even though the regulations are now a little bit longer in the tooth.”

Pictures: 2020 Mercedes F1 car

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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19 comments on “First pictures: New Mercedes W11 debuts at Silverstone”

  1. Why do I have a strong feeling of watching another championship wining car. These sidepods are true masterpiece of engineering.

    1. Status quo bias? Or probably a ton of other cognitive biases based on the fact that the team has won the last 6 championship titles?

      I would love to hear more about the masterpiece? To me they look like they just went the way Red Bull, Ferrari and most of the grid with their sidepods design, nothing revolutionary.

    2. Mercedes is almost the last team to adopt this kind of sidepods.

  2. Hamilton wouldn’t sniff the podium in another car , Max is correct, Hamilton’s victory’s and podiums are car dependent.

    1. @Dawn Keebals You must be new in F1 if you truly believe that nonsense. back in 2009 Hamilton made it to P3 from P17 while the McLaren was two seconds slower than the Brawn GP’s and RBR’s only to be disqualified, Schumacher nor Senna never achieved that, nor we Verstappen ever achieve that and Lewis won two races with that car. Verstappen should keep his big mouth shut.

    2. Ah, I fondly remember the days when Max dragged his utterly uncompetitive Tori Rosso to victories and podiums … Oh wait, his podiums and victories only came when he was driving a Red Bull, one of the top cars on the grid. But that is just a coincidence, right? How goes that saying about glass houses again?

      1. Tor*o* Rosso.
        Typing on a phone keyboard, not my strong suit!

  3. So still a long wheelbase car.

    1. Dutchguy (@justarandomdutchguy)
      14th February 2020, 12:09

      Can’t deny it worked well for them. Not gonna argue with 3 consecutive double titles

      1. Oh man I’ve time travelled back 3 years again

  4. Random question but how are they allowed to run slick Yellow Pirelli rubber for a filming day? I thought they had to use the blue grooved demonstration tyres (like you see on the Alpha Romeo shots)

    1. That’s it, isn’t it! We’ve caught them out cheating! That’s the only way to explain their phenomenal success. I always knew Lewis Hamilton was a fraud! Yellow tyres in pre-testing tests, that’s the secret!!!!!

    2. I’m pretty sure someones done their due dillagence at Merc (Also how would they of got the tyres if it was illicit? – Pirelli control the entire supply of F1 rubber).

      And yes looks like the Alfa has also ran in the yellow later on – the first pictures were them running the wet grooved tyres.

      Reading into it I believe Pirelli just nominate a tyre (more than likely a 2019 tyre they have left over) whereas I think they used to make specific demo tyres.

  5. Very interesting hole under the rear suspension…

  6. I’m surprised to Lewis already riding the kerbs on a shakedown run. Confidence or foolhardiness?

  7. Not one image of the rear of the car!! Is that media complicity with Mercedes?

    1. I suspect the media company is employed by Mercedes, maybe even owned by them, so all the images we see here would have Toto’s approval. After all, even photo-journalists have bills to pay, so if the photographer can earn “extra” by not photographing certain bits … is that wrong?

  8. Pictures…

    Let’s see what testing and the first gp brings.

Comments are closed.