Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsMercedes

Mercedes set for 'unusual' upgrades

Mercedes is set to introduce some "unusual" upgrades for its W07 later this week.

Lewis Hamilton completed 156 laps on the opening day of pre-season testing at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, almost double the number of any other team. With Mercedes pushing hard for mileage on the first day, Wolff says the car will be upgraded later in the week and revealed he was surprised when he first saw some of the concepts which will be introduced.

"I think we are having some bits which are maybe slightly unusual," Wolff said. "We're not sure if they will come on to the car tomorrow or after tomorrow, it depends on how the analysis of the data from today goes. But certainly some things to look at.

"Certainly the first time I saw it I was pretty surprised."

Wolff confirmed to F1i early on Monday that Mercedes would be looking to introduce updates earlier than usual in pre-season testing due to the limited amount of days available to prove out new parts ahead of Melbourne.

"It's pretty true that you shift your expectations and what you're trying to achieve. When it went so well like last year there is still room for progress and our plan for today was to do lots of laps and lots of mileage to collect data and check various systems and correlation before we head in to the next phase and this is looking at performance which is going to happen starting tomorrow or after tomorrow."

Report: Vettel tops opening day of testing as Mercedes racks up mileage

Follow live coverage and timing from pre-season testing here

GALLERY: Pre-season testing day one

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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.