Mercedes Technical director: "Asking ourselves 'have we forgotten something?'"

Forgotten something?

The construction of the W12, as the car of Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas is officially called, is progressing well. The Mercedes engine drove around Silverstone in the new McLaren on Tuesday and on 2 March, the Mercedes car will be presented to the public.

According to technical director James Allison the preparations are going well. "Everything seems to be going smoothly and we hope so, but the start of the year is very different from usual," Speedweek.com quoted him as saying. "We always have the question in the back of our minds: have we forgotten something?"

Different rhythm than usual

This year is especially different because many parts of the cars remain the same as in 2020. "Normally we would test completely new parts, assemble them and then integrate them into the car. Instead, this year we expect more management tasks to make sure we have enough spare parts and that everything is ready. We will only test things that have changed instead of testing the whole car," said Allison.

"That brings a very different rhythm and leads us to ask ourselves 'Did we forget something?' Of course, we have a lot to do and double and triple check everything so we don't have any embarrassing moments when everything is loaded onto planes and shipped to the tracks," reassures the Englishman.