Mercedes’ highly-anticipated 2012 car made its track debut this week during a secret test day at Silverstone.<\/p>\n
“Lots of questions about Silverstone and shakedowns,” admitted the Northamptonshire based team on Twitter on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Youtube video footage, captured by a trackside observer, showed the ‘step’ nose W03 turning laps at the British grand prix venue, which is located just a 15-minute drive from the German team’s Brackley headquarters.<\/p>\n
Mercedes said the test was for “filming” purposes, with Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher’s equally sharing the allowed 100 kilometres of running.<\/p>\n
Italy’s Autosprint website said the car appeared “fairly conventional”, despite speculation the late test debut is due to the team keeping an explosive technical innovation close to its chest.<\/p>\n
Adrian Newey, Red Bull’s car designer, admitted he and Mercedes’ rivals might have a very close look at the W03 if the rumours about the technical secret are true.<\/p>\n
“If it comes out and goes three seconds quicker than anybody else, yes of course,” he is quoted by Reuters.<\/p>\n
“Other than that, simply because its later doesn’t mean to say you are going to suddenly show more attention at that than anybody else’s.”<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, after the struggling Spanish team’s 2012 car recently failed two mandatory FIA crash tests, HRT will sit out next week’s Barcelona test.<\/p>\n
Last week at Jerez, Pedro de la Rosa ran at the wheel of the 2011 car.<\/p>\n
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