Reigning World Champions, Mercedes, today released their 2017 title challenger, the W08, at Silverstone Circuit. This follows the release of three other 2017 cars from Sauber, Renault, and Force India, although Williams also released rendered images of their car online last week.
Mercedes reveal the 2017 W08 at Silverstone
The W08 will be driven by Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas. Bottas joins the team from Williams following the unexpected retirement of Nico Rosberg in November after becoming the 2016 Formula 1 World Champion at the Abu Dhbi Grand Prix. Bottas has a one year deal with the team, with reports suggesting that Mercedes are targeting a bigger name for the 2018 Season such as Sebastian Vettel or Fernando Alonso.
In the opinion of many, 2017 will once again be dominated by Mercedes, with the team apparently beginning work on the W08 during the first half of the 2016 Season when the W07 was still in action, with the team spending a long amount of time designing the car. Furthermore, there have been reports that Mercedes have made large improvements with their power units – something that could be a big blow to other teams across the grid that are powered by Renault, Ferrari, and Honda engines.
Unlike the other 2017 cars released so far, the Mercedes W08 does not have a fin mounted on the engine cover. As well as this, the car also features a very similar nose cone to the one used by the team in 2015 and 2016, with the ‘thumb’ nose not being utilized by the team, making Mercedes the only team so far in 2017 not to use this design.
The W08 also features the same livery used by Mercedes in recent years, with silver remaining as the prominent colour, along with petrol blue and black detailing on the sidepods, front wing, and rear wing.
