McLaren have had only limited time to test the car and with a busy fortnight approaching they will not get time to put it through its paces until after the trip to Magny-Cours.
Brawn shocked F1 by turning up at the final pre-season test in 2009 with a car that was nearly a second faster than anything else after a battle to survive following the withdrawal of former owner Honda.
BBC: Ross Brawn says top Formula 1 teams are closely matched
Our test car was the TL with SH-AWD ("super-handling all-wheel drive, " one of my favorite overblown Japanese brand phrases) equipped with the 3.7-liter V6 and new-for-2012 six-speed automatic (previously a five-speed).
From the beginning of our running, we have been able to focus on understanding the car and making good progress with our test program.
At the end of the ride, there are opportunities to take digital photos with the car you designed, and just raced through the Test Track in.
Now, of course, everything is relative, and my test car is a 2.0-liter, front-drive compact with an automatic transmission on all-season meats, so it's not remotely a sports car.
The cabin trim on our test car was an exquisite claret-colored Nappa top grain leather, set off with alloy and lacquer-black wood trim.
The new Mercedes car will break cover in a test at Valencia in Spain on 1-3 February, with Schumacher's team-mate Nico Rosberg set to be the first man at the wheel.
The new car will make its first appearance at a preseason test in Jerez, Spain, next week with Felipe Massa guiding it around the track before Fernando Alonso gets his chance in Barcelona on February 19.
With the Focus Electric rolling into showrooms, I took a pre-production model on a two-week tech test drive around the San Francisco Bay Area last month to experience daily life in the cloud with an electric car.
FORBES: The Ford Focus Electric: A Tesla Model S For the Middle Class
There were demonstrations that allowed you to play music on headphones, test if products were genuine or counterfeit, or that let you replace your car keys or your house keys with just your phone.
In green transportation news, we watched in awe as Jeremy Clarkson took the world's smallest car -- which is basically a go-kart with body armor -- for a terrifying test drive on England's busy A3 highway.
The complexities of large cities present a myriad of challenges as much as developing the car and technology itself, but there have already been early discussions with Singapore and Hong Kong to test drive the cars and system on a small scale.
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