The race is on. And could we have seen the car that's going to do a lot of winning

for the first time today? Very probably. The new Mercedes W-11 hit the track at Silverstone

for the first time with changes at the front, middle and

rear, according to tech boss James Allison. So is this the car that will make it seven on the

trots, or will it be the first Mercedes to be defeated in what feels like living memory?

I'm your host, Ed Straw, and joining me today is Scott Mitchell, and we'll also be hearing

Gary Anderson's verdict on the car later. But first, Scott, it's roles reversed for us today compared to your last two appearances because you're back at HQ. I'm out in Austria for the Al-Fa-Torri launch. So your tour of doing podcasts for the race from major European Capitals continues. I think this is four in the last four appearances, isn't it? Yeah, I'm making a good go of it. I've become, well, I wouldn't

say, I'm not international, am I? I'm continental. Stockholm, near to Milan and then Paris, and now,

yeah, the race HQ in London. So I'm getting around a bit. I'm making good use of, you know,

access around Europe, which I am a big fan of, as you know. Let's not get political, Scott. Let's not get political. We'll keep it to Formula One. Well, I should say Mercedes isn't the only car that's broken cover today. We've seen the Alpha Romeo and we'll be seeing the Alpha Tore at the time of recording. But we're going to talk just about Mercedes in this podcast and we'll give separate podcast to the other two teams.

So I think it's important they get their own attention rather than being a bit of an afterthought.

So this one is all about Mercedes. Now, Scott, the first glance, this is all very Mercedes, isn't it?

It's a car that doesn't sort of instantly the first second you see it look massively different,

but there's loads of detail changes and that they've done a lot of work. it's it's a car that doesn't sort of instantly the first second you see it look

massively different but there's loads of detail changes and that they've they've done a lot of

work kind of everywhere in terms of changing the car so it's kind of standard Mercedes isn't it and

I mean that in the best possible way yeah well when you've operated at the level that they've

operated at over the last few seasons it's kind of if it ain't broke broke, don't fix it. And what they're really good at at Mercedes is

just these, these sort of iterations of a top class design. And we've seen over the last two years

how they've morphed into, you know, one of, if not the best all-round chassis on the grid and

certainly the best all-round package.

And it was that engine advantage that gave them the edge in the first few years of this

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