Mercedes completed an impressive on-track debut of its 2026 Formula 1 challenger as its brand new car and engine immediately maximised its mileage allocation.
Positioned as the early favourite to win the 2026 F1 title before testing has even begun, Mercedes is hoping its newly revealed W17 will be able to succeed where its ground effect cars failed from 2022 to 2025.
Paddock rumours started a long time ago that Mercedes' development for the new engine regulations was going very well, then late last year came irritation from rival manufacturers that Mercedes has interpreted the new, more restrictive compression ratio in a way that could be worth several tenths of a second in engine performance alone.
The sentiment that Mercedes is best-placed among the engine manufacturers will be fuelled further by the car's first running at Silverstone.
It is a small warning to the rest of the grid that Mercedes' brand new car and engine have hit almost 200km - the maximum allowed on such a filming day - straight out of the box with both George Russell and Kimi Antonelli driving.
By comparison, the new Audi works team only managed a quarter of that when it completed its shakedown with a conservative car specification designed to maximise mileage.
Meanwhile, Racing Bulls, which uses the same brand new Red Bull Ford Powertrains engine as the senior team, opted to shake its car down with a 'demonstration event' - which is capped at a much lower 15km - at Imola then return for a full filming day 24 hours later.
New team Cadillac, which uses a Ferrari engine, did not use its full 200km allocation at Silverstone last week and it is not known what Mercedes customer Alpine, another team known to have shaken its car down at Silverstone, managed on Wednesday.
However, the fact Mercedes had the confidence to aim for a full filming day immediately, and was then able to pull it off, means it has started in as strong a way as possible.
"We have had a sensible first day of running with the W17 at Silverstone," said Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin.
"As with any shakedown, the focus is on ensuring everything operates safely and reliably. We were able to get through our allotted mileage, with both George and Kimi getting to experience the 2026 car on track for the first time.
"That is testament to the hard work of everyone at Brackley and Brixworth."
And compared to the Alpine, which some limited imagery exists of, the differences in packaging around the engine and sidepods shows what a works team with a good lead time on a project can do versus a (new) customer that is not as well refined.
The braver a team is willing to be when there's a brand new engine to work around, the bigger the potential rewards. Mercedes will have its first clues of what works and what doesn't, and a clearer understanding of its car will start to come next week at the private Barcelona test.
While there is so much focus on engine performance and this is expected to be the main differentiator early in 2026 between teams, the importance of this car design cannot be underestimated.
Mercedes is the early betting favourite and has been the second-best Mercedes-powered team for the last two years because it was usurped by customer McLaren in 2024.
Whether the W17 is going to return Mercedes to its former glories depends on whether Mercedes comes unstuck by this set of rules in the way it never fully grasped how to maximise the generation of ground-effect cars.
It is impossible to glean competitive cues at the moment and it will need to be deep into testing before anyone commits to a pecking order with any reasonable degree of confidence.
But as the current emphasis is on preparation and reliability it is hard not to view this as a positive beginning for Mercedes.
