Mercedes confirms upgrades for first race in Austria

In the period without races Mercedes certainly did not sit still. The team confirms today that it will come up with upgrades for the W11 before the first race of the season.

Head start

Mercedes says they don't necessarily have a lead over their competitors. The team does say that they will come to Austria with the necessary upgrades that Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas will use.

According to technical head James Allison there will be a further developed W11 in Austria. "We haven’t yet done a single race, but actually quite a lot of time has passed since we launched this car", said Allison to Crash.net.

Hungry

"And if you imagine where the car launch was was and the car that would’ve gone to Australia, that was frozen around about Christmas so there was the whole of January, the whole of February, March – all making the car quicker in the wind tunnel and also in the design departments", Allison continues. "So our challenge now is to make sure that that quarter of a year of development can get off the drawing boards and onto the car as swiftly as possible."

"Although it might feel distant to all the fans of the sport who are hungry for that on-track action, the first race in Austria feels desperately close for us. So we’re utterly paranoid now, to use the few weeks we have ahead of us to make sure that the interruption doesn’t throw us off our normal balance and poise", ended Allison.