Mercedes Technical Director reveals how early work began on the W11

Mercedes Technical Director James Allison reveals how early Mercedes began work on their 2020 title challenger and it was earlier than you may have thought.

Given that teams have all generally acknowledged that the 2020 Formula One entries will be an evolved version of the 2019 models, Allison surprised fans when he revealed that Mercedes has started working on the W11 before the W10 had turned a wheel.

"Here we are with the days fast disappearing before we'll be in Melbourne, and although for many of the people who watch the sport it seems like we finish the season and then magically show up with a new car just a few short weeks later, the process of actually getting there is a lot longer and a lot more involved than that," said Allison in a post on the Mercedes' Twitter account.

"The car that we're going to be showing up with in Melbourne, the first thoughts went into that car at the tail end of 2018. The whole of the 2019 season hadn't happened. We hadn't even run our 2019 car. We'd only started testing bits of it in the factory around the time we were thinking what we were going to do in 2020."

Lights out in Australia is fast approaching... 👀

But did you know work on W11 actually started all the way back in 2018! 😮

Catch up with James from the very heart of the factory here in Brackley 👇 pic.twitter.com/lLfR9t4xG0

— Mercedes-AMG F1 (@MercedesAMGF1) January 31, 2020

Allison explained how the process starts slowly but ramps up as the season progresses with more focus being shifted from the current car to the next.

If this was the case with the 2020 car, it can be expected that, before the budget cap is introduced for 2021, Mercedes will already have a sizable team working on the 2021 car to ensure that the Silver Arrows remain top dogs in the sport - if they elect to remain in Formula One of course.

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