Lewis Hamilton says he's excited to finally try out Mercedes latest upgrade package which will debut this weekend at the Austrian Grand Prix.
Mercedes hasn't brought any major upgrades to its W09 this season other than its latest spec engine, which made its debut last weekend at the French GP following a small delay.
However this weekend will see a raft of changes including new sidepods, new mirror mounts and a new rear-wing, following the introduction of a small front suspension-mounted wing at Paul Ricard.
"The development race is always tight," said Hamilton. "Up until now we've not really had a lot of development parts on the car. I've been aware that the guys have been working increasingly harder to try and make sure we bring quality rather than quantity.
"It's great to see there are some new bits here this weekend and I'm excited to try them on track. It will undoubtedly help us in our battle to fight the other guys.
"I'm excited because when you bolt something to the car, which we haven't really bolted to the car this year, it's one of the first real, serious upgrades.
"It's great when you get out there, because you feel the first couple of points [of downforce] straight away in a certain corner, you feel those improvements.
"I'm looking forward to experiencing it tomorrow, and trying to figure out where those improvements are on the circuit."
Asked about the new power unit, Hamilton admitted he couldn't feel a huge amount of difference.
"It’s as least as good as the last one, which was already pretty special. It doesn’t feel much different, it pulls a little bit better in some areas, in parts of the power curve, and hopefully it is more reliable."
