Mercedes have “borrowed” from past Red Bull F1 cars in the design of the W16, Ted Kravitz reporting they’ve just taken it to a “more extreme level”.

Mercedes completed a shakedown of the all-new W16 at the Bahrain International Circuit on Tuesday where they joined out on track by Red Bull as the Milton Keynes squad also put the first laps on their RB21.

A ‘silver=black-and-grey Red Bull’, just ‘more extreme’

Mercedes have said of the new car that it ‘builds on the learnings from its predecessor’ and includes ‘sizeable changes’ compared to the W15.

Changes that Kravitz says come from Red Bull’s past ground-effect aerodynamic cars.

Featuring a revised nose, changes to the front wing, redesigned floor and rear suspension, as well as a new-look shark fin engine cover, the W16 also sports reshaped sidepods with vertical air intakes.

F1 Testing: Merc and Co. on the track in Bahrain

👉 F1 uncovered: Technical Image Gallery – Pre-season testing – Day One

👉 First Mercedes W16 impressions come to light in ‘silky smooth’ Russell assessment

Added to that the car has overbite sidepod inlets where the top surface extends beyond the main intake that was adopted by last year’s Red Bull’s RB20.

Such as the changes, Kravitz pondered if the Mercedes W16 should be called the “silver-black-and-grey Red Bull”

“We’ve talked in the past about Racing Point being a pink Mercedes and people taking design cues from Mercedes,” he told Sky F1.

“Well, I don’t know whether we should call this the silver-black-and-grey Red Bull, because they have certainly taken some design cues from recent Red Bulls, but they’ve taken it to a more extreme level.

“If you haven’t looked this is a good opportunity to have a look at the sidepods and the air intakes. So just beneath the wing mirror where it says Petronas, you can see one of the sidepod air intakes is the vertical one that Red Bull brought to their car at the beginning of last year.

“But this overbite, not the underbite that Red Bull started a couple of years ago, but the overbite where the top of the sidepod air intake extrudes over the bottom lip a bit. How stream it is, going back towards the rear of the car and the top of the floor on this Mercedes.

“So it’s different. It’s a different design idea than Mercedes had last year. They have borrowed it off Red Bull Racing, that’s fair to say.

“And there are some other design cues around this car which make it look a little bit like last year’s Red Bull.

“It looks a very tidy package, quite different from what Mercedes have been used to. They’ve stayed with the pushrod front suspension, which is something that Ferrari and Red Bull do not have. And yeah, it’s quite an interesting car.”

Read next: Ted Kravitz reveals Lewis Hamilton ‘expectation’ amid Ferrari pole position ‘rumours’