Mercedes Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton pleased with familiar feeling of the W11

Mercedes

Hamilton comfortable in the W11

The W11 runs for the first time at Silverstone

Sam Hall

Saturday 15 February 2020 09:46

Lewis Hamilton is encouraged by the familiar feeling of the W11, a car that he says feels largely the same to the final version of the W10 that ran in Abu Dhabi.

Hardly a single component has been carried over from the championship winning Mercedes W10 to the W11, something confirmed by technical director James Allison earlier at the Silverstone shakedown on Friday, but Hamilton says the car 'didn't feel like a big departure' from its predecessor after completing his .

"I've just come out from being on the track. I've been doing this a long, long time but every time you get in, the excitement is exactly the same, if not more," said Hamilton on a Instagram story.

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"The car felt great. Obviously there's so much work that goes into building this car, you're only one of two that get to drive it.

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"So you're really trying to pay attention to your surroundings, the seating position and feeling you're getting back from the steering column and balance, a little bit of the balance you're trying to get a feel for.

"But it's not that easy with the track not being perfect. But it all ran smoothly, we won't really know until we get to testing how good of a machine it is in terms of how big of an improvement it is.

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"But it didn't feel like a big departure from where we were in Abu Dhabi, so that's a good start."

Lewis Hamilton will next take to the track in the W11 when preseason testing begins in Barcelona on February 19 - the first of six days of running before the season begins in Australia on March 15.