We are still several days from being visors-down, all clear and jet set to go for the 2020 Formula 1 season. The Australian Grand Prix of 2020 is still, comfortably over a month away, signaling the grand start to what could be another exhilarating year in the sport.
Yet, it appears one of the most important moments and perhaps the great determiner of the forthcoming leg of the 2020 world championship has already arrived with the launch of the Mercedes 2020 F1 car.
Few teams bring the level of excitement to Formula 1 and pump the adrenaline rush quite like Mercedes.
Time and again, the Brackley-based side have proved themselves to be writers of the dominant discourse of Formula 1 in the contemporary era, unleashing a unique array of victories, across globetrotting venues, across continents uniting fans and critics with thrill and awe, alike.
A season of dominance in 2019
So utterly dominant was Mercedes in 2019 that in the first half of the season, there were no wins for any other side until the F1 circus reached the Austrian Grand Prix where a Max Verstappen show halted what had until such time been an utterly Merc-dominated show, amplified by 8 consecutive wins.
Toward the end of the season, Mercedes entered the garage with 15 wins out of 21, Ferrari managing only 3, with 2 wins going to Leclerc as Vettel (clearly in a deplorable run) managed only a solitary victory as Red Bull’s Max Verstappen emerged with 3 wins.
No other team barring Ferrari in the nineties and the 2000s, it must be said, have done to Formula 1 what Toto Wolff-led side has managed in recent times.
Having won the 2019 season akin to the comfort it takes a long-distance runner to win a marathon with about half the effort vis-a-vis others competing, Mercedes clinched yet another world championship, proving yet again, that there would be none other to challenge their supremacy in a sport they have quite emphatically made their own.
Can 2020 be another enthralling year where the Silver Arrows go onto produce another gold of a performance?
This is a question that will ultimately boil down to how their latest challenger- W11- Mercedes 2020 F1 car plays down in the events to follow.
But up first, here are some salient features of the new Mercedes 2020 F1 car. Upon making some sense of the first images of Mercedes 2020 F1 car, basis the revelation, it can be said that the gorgeously designed red and silver liveried car is a bit of a departure from the last championship-bagging contender the Mercedes W10 of 2019.
First impressions
Großer Preis von Bahrain 2017, Samstag – Steve Etherington
It is not hard to see that Mercedes have tightened up the bodywork of their new challenger to hit the Formula 1 stable. The fact that the team’s engineers have opted for quite narrow sidepods isn’t that hard to note.
It has been revealed that the first to hit the road will be Finnish driver Valtteri Bottas, who emerged second only to Lewis the last year. Hamilton, it is expected, will take to the car, which could prove to be his seventh world title winning-machine, later in the day.
The supertight car design, as expected, the Mercedes 2020 F1 car doesn’t look that ‘overdeveloped’ compared to the last season if one might put it that way.
The actual car will soon be showcased in the Silverstone Pit lane on February 14.
More to follow as the day progresses!