F1 2018: New Mercedes and Ferrari cars break cover


(Photo credit: Stephen Grimes)

What they said

Mercedes

After a brief demo run at Silverstone, Mercedes presented the W09 to the media at an event featuring both their drivers and team principal Toto Wolff.

While Mercedes said that the car featured the same wheelbase, yet runs a slightly increased angle of rake in the chassis, much of the talk was about the power unit, with Mercedes managing director Andy Cowell telling the media that, "The amount of change on the power unit for this year is quite considerable and driven by a number of requirements."

“The biggest challenge we’ve got is lifting our durability limit with the challenge of racing just three engines per driver per championship and two ERS systems. That’s a 40% increase in the distance that the hardware needs to do for this year compared with last year. We focussed on trying to increase the life of the hardware without losing performance.”

I'm sure all their engine suppliers will be thrilled to hear this! But what about the car?

Reigning world champion Lewis Hamilton was positively gushing with praise for his team, telling reporters, "What we see today is an evolution of both of our (Hamilton and Bottas) driving DNA fused into one."

"There's a different aerodynamic characteristic this year compared to last year. Some of the suspension, some of the roll issues that we had, some of the ride issues that we had, some of the floor characteristics, those things will be improved quite a lot.

"Everything's brand new, all the suspension, everything's been re-done."

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