Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsMercedes

'Mini revolutions' throughout Mercedes W07 - Lowe

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Paddy Lowe says Mercedes has aimed to make "mini revolutions" throughout the new W07 as it seeks "optimisation absolutely everywhere".

Mercedes has been the dominant force over the past two seasons, with Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg winning 32 of the 38 races since the start of 2014 between them. With very little difference in the technical regulations between last season and 2016, executive director (technical) Lowe says the team has been looking at overhauling the small details of its car to provide performance gains.

GALLERY: Mercedes W07

"It's difficult to have a complete revolution when the rules have stayed pretty much the same year on year," Lowe said. "But we aim to make minor revolutions wherever we can - even within a small context. We may look at a completely new packaging solution or suspension concept, for instance.

"So, while the car may look very similar to its predecessor from the outside - as is inherent within stable regulations - underneath there are quite a lot of mini revolutions that make up an overall evolution for the new season."

And Lowe says there were clear instances where the W06 showed weaknesses which Mercedes has attempted to rectify with the new car this year.

"After a highly successful season all round in 2015, our priority has been to identify the areas in which we were weakest and to try to improve on those. Our objective is excellence in all areas and, while we had some fantastic results last year, there are many areas in which we can still be much better.

"That's the kind of culture we try to instill throughout the whole organisation - one of constantly striving to reach something better. We had a number of races that didn't go to plan in 2015 - Singapore in particular - so there were a lot of things that needed improving for 2016. We are seeking optimisation absolutely everywhere."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.