Mercedes has finally released the first official images of the new W07, which ran for the first time at a private filming day at Silverstone on Friday.
The team's technical boss Paddy Lowe says that Mercedes has addressed any weaknesses it had in 2015 – a statement that must be a little worrying for rivals who have spent the winter trying to catch up.
“After a highly successful season all round in 2015, our priority has been to identify the areas in which we were weakest, and to try to improve on those” said Lowe. “Our objective is excellence in all areas and, while we had some fantastic results last year, there are many areas in which we can still be much better.
“That’s the kind of culture we try to instil throughout the whole organization – one of constantly striving to reach something better. We had a number of races that didn’t go to plan in 2015 – Singapore in particular – so there were a lot of things that needed improving for 2016. We are seeking optimization absolutely everywhere.”
The 2016 Mercedes Power Unit
Lowe stressed that rules stability meant that it was harder to find performance heading into the new season.
“It’s difficult to have a complete revolution when the rules have stayed pretty much the same year on year. But we aim to make minor revolutions wherever we can – even within a small context. We may look at a completely new packaging solution or suspension concept, for instance.
“So, while the car may look very similar to its predecessor from the outside – as is inherent within stable regulations – underneath there are quite a lot of mini revolutions that make up an overall evolution for the new season.
“It’s very tough to find performance under a stable set of regulations and we were particularly pleased with how the car turned out in 2015 when we had the same situation. The team did a fantastic job – digging very deep to find all sorts of innovations in areas that might have been considered static. 2016 is another carry-over year from a regulatory point of view and potential gains inevitably become harder to find under these circumstances.
“This is what tests an engineering team the most and I must say that this team has been very good at that. It’s far easier to find performance when you have a new set of rules, that’s for sure.”
Lowe also made the interesting observation that given the truncated test schedule the car will not change as much from launch to the first race as in previous years.
“The amount of testing permitted each season has been reduced progressively in recent years. We've now reached a new minimum in terms of winter testing, with two banks of four days. That's something the team has been preparing for by producing better designs and undertaking better preparation and testing in the R&D lab so that we're as well placed as possible to hit the ground running.
“What's different for 2016 is actually not so much that there are only two tests - but that they're both very close to the first race of the season. This has notably reduced the extent to which we can upgrade the car from 'launch spec' to the first race spec. That window is now very narrow, which reduces the number of potential upgrades ahead of the opening Grand Prix weekend.”
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