Mercedes showcased its 2022 F1 car and a revised livery from 2021 with Lewis Hamilton making his first public appearance with the team since Abu Dhabi.
Mercedes became the eighth F1 outfit to reveal its 2022 machine and the last for this week of launches. The event had Hamilton in his first appearance with the team in public form since the Abu Dhabi GP – he did attend the post-season celebration but it was internal.
Also by his side was his new teammate George Russell who has already made several appearances since joining Mercedes. Six of the seven juniors were also present for the live event as the team also confirmed Nyck de Vries and Stoffel Vandoorne as reserve drivers.
The team presented the photos of its 2022 car with a revised livery with the silver making a return after couple of seasons with black. The car is close to a finished one and is similar to how McLaren MCL36 is, with a shakedown planned for later today.
The sidepod is box type as seen on some other cars. The nose dips forward and is close to being pointy as the Ferrari but not as much. “Ever since work on W13 began, I have seen an excited enthusiasm in our team members like never before, thanks to the scale of opportunity that these technical regulations provide,” said Wolff.
“Towards the end of the year when the car build project truly came together, I felt a deep passion across the whole organisation, not only in the technical arena but across our bases at Brackley and Brixworth who were embracing a mindset of ‘we can do this'”. We did pretty well during the last big regulatory change into the hybrid era and performed well when we went from the narrow to the wide cars in 2017.
“While we have a good track record, my message is clear: we can’t rely on past success for this year’s performance, but we can rely on our people, our culture, our structure, and our mindset to do the best possible job for 2022. Regarding drivers, I have never seen him more determined. Lewis is the best driver in the world, and he is joined by one of the brightest and most promising of their generation in George.
“I have no doubt that we can create an environment of partnership between the two, of productivity to develop this new car which will be essential, whilst maintaining a healthy competition that will motivate them and the wider team. George is just getting on with the job. I know he’s had a good winter of training and we’ve seen him in the factory, working on the simulator and with his engineers. This team has always been his home and therefore the transition to driving for us has been very smooth,” summed up Wolff.
F1 2022 launches so far:
Here’s details of F1 launches, filming, fire-up
Here’s details of contract, superlicense penalty points
More to come
