The Mercedes tweaks that should make the best even better

Mercedes has managed to get two bites out of the Formula 1 launch season, first unveiling the addition of Ineos-instigated burgundy to the overall livery, before peeling the virtual covers off the W11 before pre-season testing gets underway.

And, for the most part, the W11 looks like nothing more than an evolution. But one must be mindful that last year Mercedes, having turned up in week one of testing with something that amounted to a beta-spec car, enacted an overhaul of the full aero package in the space of a week.

Although technical chief James Allison has mentioned that the team will not persist with the strategy of bringing an "entire new car" to the second week of testing, there will be an upgrade package to help the team prepare for Melbourne.

But naturally the car presented on Friday morning did, for the most part, look like the W10 with a few bits tacked on - or left off, in one particular case.

Probably the clearest difference compared to last season's model is at the sidepod inlets. Mercedes becomes the final team to transition to the letterbox inlets and has moved the side impact structure lower down to accommodate the new design. With that lowered, the inlet fits in above that and gives the engineers a greater sidepod undercut to play with.

Around the sidepod, the turning vanes look to be those run towards the end of 2019, although the main part now fully loops around the sidepod inlet rather than being broken up into two parts.

Both designs have merits, of course, and although the single-piece vane cleans up the airflow passing over the sidepod section, breaking it into two brings tip vortices into the mix and can energise that flow. Even if Mercedes eventually switches from one design to the other, the team has experience and knowledge of both layouts. One change is that the bottom edge - not directly attached to the floor - seems to have a little extra curvature.

The shape of the sidepods and engine cover look distinctly similar to last year's car and lets airflow from the top face follow the path downwards and onto the floor - drifting into the Coke bottle section at the rear. Be it a genuine change or a result of the lighting in the renders, the rear end appears to be tighter than last year's - and so the overall airflow from sidepods to rear should be even tidier.

There's also some changes to the bargeboards too, and while the smaller elements appear to be retained from the end-of-year W10, the upper edge of the main bargeboard panel has been broken up further to assist the transition of flow to the lower part of the sidepods.

Apart from those changes, the launch variant of the W11 features mostly late-season aero from the W10. The front wing was a particular area in which Mercedes focused a lot of its attention last season, and by the end of 2019 had gravitated from a design that had used the majority of the allowed bounding box to a design more rooted in the philosophy developed by the likes of Ferrari.

One thing that can't be seen from the renders is whether Mercedes has retained the rear suspension duct that was spotted on the car last season

Although Mercedes' front wing was never as extreme, it still sacrificed a little downforce on the outboard section and relied more on loading up the inboard part. The small split is still in the penultimate front wing element, owing to a shorter-span final flap, but it remains to be seen if Mercedes spends the early part of testing trialling any evolutions of that layout.

Retaining the cape section, Mercedes has had to watch a number of teams develop their own version over the off-season. Of course, with three seasons' extra experience of running the device on its own cars, Mercedes will be completely au fait with the change in airflow structure that the cape provides - while others may still have to spend some time getting it to work first.

There aren't many other changes down the car, perhaps in anticipation of the debut of new parts at Barcelona.

Just a single downwards turning vane appears on the side of the chassis, unlike the two used last year - although the tiny deflector behind the upper suspension wishbone appears too. None of the cooling panels around the rear of the halo appear either, but this seems to be a decision to avoid the bodywork lines around the car.

At the rear, Mercedes has also shown the W11 with a single-element T-wing with downturned tips to better place the tip vortices generated. The endplates are the same as last year's, introduced at Hockenheim, although one curiosity in the rear wing area is the decision not to show the DRS actuator housing.

Whether oversight or intentionally left off, the retention of the V-shape in the rear wing flap suggests that it should be there on the actual car - rather than dipping into the back catalogue to reroute the actuators into the rear wing endplates.

One thing that can't be seen from the renders is whether Mercedes has retained the rear suspension duct that was spotted on the car last season. This was a source of consternation for other teams, and it is believed that Ferrari queried the legality of the device - which offers more control over rear tyre temperatures - with a view to developing its own version.

As mentioned, by the time the Barcelona tests roll around, Mercedes will bolt on a number of brand new parts with the aim of making the step it requires and retaining its advantage. The team didn't show its true hand until the final day of testing last year, and emerged for the season opener in Melbourne with a hefty advantage over pre-season favourites Ferrari.

And while the W11 isn't a visual departure from its predecessor, Allison explained that the team had to make a few architectural changes to the package to ensure that the development curve could continue.

"The regulations stayed largely the same for the new year, so for us it was all about trying to make sure that we don't run out of development steam on a package that worked pretty well for us last year. If we had continued merely to add flourishes to the 2019 baseline, we would have found some gains, but in all likelihood diminishing returns would be kicking in by now.

"We wanted to change aspects of the concept of the car - aspects that would be completely impossible to change within a season - to give us a more fertile platform for the new season. We tried to make a few well-chosen architectural changes to keep the development slope strong, even though the regulations are now a little bit longer in the tooth."

Although every team on the grid has one eye on getting the 2021 formula right, Mercedes has the capital and the staff numbers to keep developing the 2020 design until the very end of the season, or at least until its development curve begins to yield diminishing returns.

Reliability is almost bulletproof, and so wholesale changes to the powertrain would be unnecessary at this stage

There is absolutely no reason why Lewis Hamilton cannot win his seventh title this year and, with a new car a development of the old, Mercedes will not suddenly make a bad car overnight.

The team at Mercedes High Performance Powertrains in Brixworth might have to box clever with a new powertrain and, although it's still one of the best packages on the grid, the Mercedes lost some straightline speed to Ferrari's rather rapid (and controversial) powerplant. However, reliability is almost bulletproof, and so wholesale changes would be unnecessary at this stage.

If anything, it's down to the competition to not only match Mercedes for performance gains, but surpass it. Given the Silver Arrows' propensity to relentlessly make little additions throughout the season and end the season with a very healthy advantage, it would be surprising if 2020 was any different.

But stranger things have happened in Formula 1.