Despite its sustained success, Mercedes didn’t sit still during the off-season. Major modifications to the W11 Defender could end up making other teams fight for second place.
SILVERSTONE, England—February 14th— In a low-keyed launch reminiscent of what happened only days earlier with Red Bull Racing, on Friday defending Formula 1 champion AMG Mercedes took its new W11 out for a 60-mile test drive at the Silverstone Circuit.
It was an understated launch for a team that will defend its Constructors Championship, and for a driver–Lewis Hamilton–who seeks to tie Michael Schumacher’s record at seven world driving titles.
But it was Valtteri Bottas, Hamilton’s teammate, not Hamilton, who was the first to drive the car. And Bottas was excited. “I only saw it a few minutes ago, and it’s a complete, beautiful car,” he observed. “To get the first feel of it–and feeling the aero, how the car works, and the engine–is always exciting. It is a big year ahead so. We can see some good things with this.”
For defending champion Hamilton, who has experienced many launch days like this, that first-day feeling never gets stale. “It is an amazing moment of the year when you see the car come all together, the team refreshed, and seeing the car run for the first time,” he said. “It is always a new piece of art, an evolution of last year’s car. But there are a bunch of details that you will not get to see beneath the hood. And I am one of two who get to go to experience it.”
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Team manager Toto Wolff is counting on more track success for Mercedes. But for that to happen, problems from last year had to be resolved. “It is an evolution, not a revolution. But we optimized the package, which is neater,” he asserted.
“We try to cure our weaknesses with the cooling,” he went on, “which was a bit of an issue. What we see here today is an outcome of the car moving a step in the right direction.”
Mercedes engine boss, Andy Cowell, addressed the cooling issue, saying that Mercedes has installed a larger radiator. “We put significant effort into making sure that all the cooling fluids on the Power Unit operate at a higher temperature,” Cowell explained. “That increases the temperature difference between coolant fluid and ambient temperature, which increases the effectiveness of the cooling system,” he continued. “That’s a tough challenge because large parts of the engine are made from aluminum, and the temperatures at which we are operating mean that material properties decay quite rapidly.”
Cowell was also quick to say that improvements were necessary to compete effectively with Ferrari’s strength. One improvement, he said, had to do with the power unit. “We had to develop an even wider area of the PU,” he remarked. “We have looked at every single system, and worked on a huge array of projects. When summed together, they will hopefully help propel the car around the track quicker and give the aerodynamics team more opportunities to improve as well.”
As for aesthetics, the new car retains most of the familiar Mercedes’ color scheme–and with many of the same sponsors–except for the top of the car and side wings, which are now in red, and the display of a new sponsor, Ineos, a chemical company.
Look and sponsorship aside, the big challenge for Mercedes is whether it can sustain its string of six consecutive championships. If that’s not a Formula 1 dynasty, then it’s at least a reign of success.
