Mercedes livery launch, Stuttgart, 2010

Pictures: Mercedes launch 2010 F1 car livery

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Mercedes have revealed the colour scheme they will use on their return to F1 in 2010.

With their 2010 F1 car – to be called the W01 – not due to appear until February 1st the team used the car raced last year by Brawn for the unveiling at the Mercedes museum in Stuttgart.

Michael Schumacher will drive car number three and Nico Rosberg will have number four. Petronas are the team’s title sponsor for 2010.

Speaking at the launch Daimler chairman and Mercedes chief Dieter Zetsche said there was “a new impetus and optimism” at the team but added: “We are a new team, so please give us a little time” – a claim that doesn’t really wash coming from the reigning world champions!

Here’s Mercedes’ explanation for their new livery:

The new silver and green livery creates a true marriage between the heritage of the Silver Arrows and the team’s title partner Petronas. The legacy of the Silver Arrows goes back to the 1934 Eifel Race when, on the evening before the event, the white paint was sanded off the Mercedes W25 race car to fulfil weight regulations (750kg formula) and the silver colour of the aluminium surface of the car appeared. This season, with the return of the Silver Arrows, the MGP W01 will shine in silver combined with a flow of iridescent silver and green shading. On the nose and other parts of the car, traces of black carbon fibre are visible – a reminder of the first Silver Arrow of 1934.

Quotes from the team:

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Michael Schumacher:

Finally the 2010 Formula One season is firing up! I have to say that I am totally committed to this new challenge. This season feels like a re-start for me and I am so motivated. We have a very exciting combination at Mercedes. We have a World Champion team in every sense of the word and I cannot wait to get into the car for the first time in Valencia. I am convinced that Mercedes will be in a very good position to fight for the championships this season and I will definitely give it a go. Driving for Mercedes-Benz again is like the closing of a circle for me as I started my racing driver career with the three-pointed star on my helmet. This is another reason why I cannot wait for the competition to get underway.

Nico Rosberg:

You can really feel the successful motorsport history of Mercedes-Benz here at the Museum in Stuttgart and to be part of the new Silver Arrows team and that racing heritage makes me feel extremely proud and motivated. Since joining the team in November, I have spent a lot of time at the factory in Brackley, at Mercedes-Benz High Performance Engines in Brixworth and here in Stuttgart, which has given me the opportunity to settle in and get to know everyone. I have seen how hard the team is working on the new car and I really can’t wait for the opportunity to drive it for the first time in Valencia next week. I am looking forward to working with everyone at Mercedes and will give it my all to reward their fantastic efforts with good on-track results this season.

Ross Brawn, team principal:

It is a privilege to be here at the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart today for the official presentation of the Mercedes Formula One Team. With your first look around the Museum, you realise the fantastic racing heritage of Mercedes-Benz and we hope to be able to contribute to those successes going forward. Our team have been working extremely hard throughout last year and over the winter on the development of the MGP W01 and everyone at the team is looking forward to the start of testing in Valencia next week. We have two excellent drivers in Nico and Michael, who will form one of the most exciting and one of the best partnerships on the grid, and with the support of Mercedes-Benz, Aabar, our new title partner Petronas and all of our team partners, everyone is looking forward to the 2010 Formula One season with anticipation.

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Norbert Haug, vice-president Mercedes-Benz motor sport:

With today’s presentation of our new Mercedes Petronas Formula One Team, a new and certainly the most important chapter of over 100 years of Mercedes-Benz motorsport history begins. The new Formula One season will offer challenges which will be bigger than ever before in over sixty years of the sport’s history. We look forward to the cooperation with our drivers Nico Rosberg who has enormous capabilities and perspectives, and with seven-time World Champion Michael Schumacher who is no less motivated than at the time when he began his professional motor racing career with Mercedes-Benz and then made his first step into such a successful Formula One career with our support. Today I also cordially welcome our new title partner Petronas as well as our co-investor Aabar/IPIC together with all of our team partners. I warmly welcome all our colleagues from last year’s World Championship team Brawn GP headed by Ross Brawn and Nick Fry to the Mercedes family. There are challenging tasks ahead of us and we will tackle them with power, consistency and full motivation.

Mercedes 2010 F1 car livery pictures

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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103 comments on “Pictures: Mercedes launch 2010 F1 car livery”

  1. Is that white/silver, cant see with all that light on the car?? Plus pictures are too small.

    1. ross brown brought his design from Ferrari F2001 F2002 and so to Brawn and now to mercedes hands

  2. looks more like a british f3 car. big nose, or maybe its just an illusion.

    1. It must be since it’s the 2009 car.

  3. Prisoner Monkeys
    25th January 2010, 10:28

    Very McLaren, circa 1997.

    Will post more when better shots arise (and when site traffic drops).

  4. Looks a bit plain…

    1. that’s because you didn’t design it? :) Could become iconic though.

      They certainly have stomped back in to the lead media wise compared to McLaren.

  5. All this proves is that the BGP001 was/is a beautiful car, and that the White/Day-glo yellow livery ruined it!

  6. I hope it’s grey not white…

    It’s hard to tell, but it looks nice to me. I least they haven’t the car in turquoise as I feared. The black sections look pretty smart too.

    Overall, I approve- though I need to see some proper pictures before I can say for certain

  7. Nice, but I don’t like the black on the end of the nosecone, there’s too much.

    1. I rescind that, it looks fantastic. Very clean, simple, understated and just the right amount of nostalgia. Much nicer than the Brawn livery and potentially one of the best on the grid.

  8. It’s just just basically a teaser anyway – no? We won’t see what the real car looks like until.. Friday, is it?

    1. Nope! That´s the livery. The 2010 car will of course be different, but the livery is this one.

  9. I think I’m going to wait until we see it on track on this year’s car before I pass judgement. Plus the lighting in these shots isn’t great so it’s hard to exactly what shade of white/grey/silver it is…

  10. Prisoner Monkeys
    25th January 2010, 10:55

    Okay, now that we’re getting some better shots – even if they are a little washed out by flashbulbs – I can give some more complete thoughts on the subject.

    I really like it.

    I think this is everything that a livery should be. It’s simple, and unassuming. It doesn’t try to be anything it isn’t, and it compleiments the lines of the car. To me, Formula 1 is becoming a bit too corporate; thse days, entire liveries are designed around a corporate sponsor. It’s unavoidable with the likes of Red Bull, but I think it’s become far too common a trend. Renault stands out as a clear example of this with their garish ING branding.

    But this livery, this, I think, is something more. I can see a lot of Mercedes’ influences in it. You’ve got the white and the silver, which recall the glory days of pre-war Grand Prix racing. And the way they mix is remniscent of the West McLaren-Mercedes cars of the late 1990s. And then there’s the design around the nose, which is recalling the Brawn in my mind. Mercedes is not being disrespectful to their history. Quite the opposite; I’m reading this as being the collected sum of their heritage up until this point in time. Whether or not that is their intention is another matter entirely.

    I guess the important part here is that Mercedes have not become a corporate billboard. They have retained a sense of self, and they’ve packaged it in a smart pacake that compliments the car. No colour is over-used, no sponsor logo out of place. When you look at the Renault cars, you can count twenty placements of the ING logo on the sidepods and engine cowling alone; if that F60 Alonso was driving with white wings is anything to go by, it will be the same deal with Santander.

    In short, I think this is actually a really great design. I look forward to seeing the MGP W01 in full next week, and of course, on the track when racing.

    1. I agree, it seems like a very nice livery, but I do have a few minor gripes:

      1. The driver overalls are VERY boring

      2. The black splodge on the engine cover
      looks a bit out of place

      3. The red Aabar logos spoil the mainly silver and black look of the livery

      4. I never though I’d say this, but I wish there was more turquoise, it looks good on the car

      1. I 2nd all what Ned said, and want to add that the mirrors don’t look that good either :S

    2. “To me, Formula 1 is becoming a bit too corporate; thse days, entire liveries are designed around a corporate sponsor.”

      Sorry just to pick up on that, ‘thse days [sic]’? The first ever fully liveried car was the Gold Leaf Lotus 49 in 1968.

      Also, it’s ridiculous that you criticise corporate led liveries, without which we would not have had the iconic Marlboro McLarens, Rothmans Williams or JPS Lotus…to name but a few.

      In terms of critique of the MGP W01, it’s ok, pretty plain but that’s what seems to come out of Brackley, and fairly sterile but that in itself is more perhaps a Mercedes (although the BMW was similar) thing. The real test is how striking it looks on a grid next to busy and coloured liveries…

      1. Perhaps the livery will look better on the finished car?

      2. Prisoner Monkeys
        28th January 2010, 2:40

        Compare the Lotus Gold Leaf car to the ING Renaults an tell me what you see: Lotus only really had a handful of logos on the car, but Renault have dozens of ING decals. That’s what I mean when I say the sport is getting too corproate – the cars are more moving billboards than racing machines.

  11. Still looks white to me & I hate that green lining on the front wing.

  12. That’s quite smart, and should look different enough from the McLaren on telly, as long as the front wing doesn’t get knocked off!

    No Nick Heidfeld then – if the rumours over the weekend were true, I’d have expected to see him there.

    1. Prisoner Monkeys
      25th January 2010, 11:21

      Doesn’t mean he won’t be a part of Mercedes, though. It could simply be that they couldn’t finish negotiations in time to present him today.

    2. Isn’t the blue wearing man interviewed on the left Nick Heidfeld?
      Seems to be…

      1. Hard to tell…thought they were just some random kwik-fit fitters!

        1. Watching better…may be SHE isn’t Heifeld…

  13. It’s grey. It is true it looks like McLaren late 90’s livery.
    Let’s wait some more for real cars launch…

  14. Oh wow mclarens 2010 car looks at lot like Braw…. oh wait

  15. Does this mean that McLaren will revert back to their legendary red-white Philip Morris livery? Or perhaps Orange?

    Surely we can’t have 4 silver arrows running around on the same piece of road.

    1. They’ve already said their livery will remain the same. Probably that’s why Mercedes look so white.

    2. No, it’ll be two silver arrows and two bath taps.

      Actually the Mercedes livery isn’t so bad, the silver works quite nicely (unlike the “chrome” McLarens which are just horrible). Not really a fan of the Petronas-inspired turquoise trims that are creeping in, though.

  16. The BBC site has a nice picture:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/motorsport/formula_one/8478471.stm

    It does look rather white, but I’m still undecided on it.

  17. From what I can see thus far I like

  18. The computer rendering picture – a glimpse of the real car? Look at how stylised and high the front wing flaps are…

  19. keepF1technical
    25th January 2010, 11:54

    sorry am i missing something. How can an ‘unveiling’ simply be an old car with a paint job and some blokes in new overalls.

    Isn’t F1 supposed to be about man and machine at the extreme. Not corporate and PR guff.

    BTW i like it… and the merc heritage. Its just i want to know what the car itself is bringing to the 2010 championships.

    1. They’re just stealing a march on the competition, plus with 2 unveilings, they get more media coverage. It’s clever media work. Petronas will be very happy, as will Merc.

  20. Two other things I need to note:

    1) MS’s helmet is still red on the rendering they released; and
    2) How much better does the car look without those horribel wheel spinner things!

  21. Incidentally: it seems Schumacher will keep his helmet in Rosso Corsa.

    It shows where he left his heart.

    1. Why? For keeping his helmet in Ferrari colours?

  22. I think this livery is really good.At least much better than Brawn’s 2009 livery.

  23. Very Mclaren indeed – do we expect the new Mclaren livery to have less silver – as it will probably be difficult to spor the difference if they will be racing each other…

  24. I really like the brushed silver effect, and the fact they’ve left some carbon fibre showing. But I’m even more happy that the livery includes the racing numbers on the rear wing end plates, a practise that has really fallen out of favour in recent years.

    1. Well said – all the teams should put the numbers where we can see them. After all, the announcements of penalties etc on TV refer to the cars by number.

      Nice retro touch to put them in a white circle too.

      1. Should be in the rules… Numbers must be big and visible on both the nosecone and take up half the rear wing endplates by default, and then teams may add them elsewhere on the car should they wish. Like how Red Bull have done on the sidepod deflectors.

  25. Doeesn’t look so nice I’m afraid… silver with Green? needs a genius designer to get them to work…

    i know the photos are not of the best quality, but if the design was remarkable, it would even show on a scanned picture from a newspaper…

    I expect they will change it within the year, of not within the month

  26. i don’t like that nose. it looks like the car has been dipped into an ashtray…

  27. As a graphic designer its not good. Whats with the grey (not silver) and that shade of green!? They should have transitioned slowly from the Brawn GP branding into Mercedes like Renault did with Benneton; silver with black trimmed day-glow yellow. Hate it when teams give into sponsors branding guidelines!

  28. From the pictures I have seen I quite like it, I agree with others that it is reminiscent of the West McLaren Mercedes livery.

    Does anyone know why they aren’t having a launch for the 2010 livery and car together? Is it because Mercedes wanted a launch at their museum but the car wouldn’t be ready until the first testing session?

    1. Is it because Mercedes wanted a launch at their museum but the car wouldn’t be ready until the first testing session?

      I very much suspect that is that case.

      1. Either wya, seems like a giant waste of money to me.

  29. Looks good. I hope they keep the wheels in silver – black looks very old.
    I would have the star at the tip of the nose done in iridescent white or silver, or in chrome. I wish that in a future version, the Petronas turquoise would change into more of a metallic British racing green — that would look beautiful.

    Future regulations should make cars SHORTER. These look like a train, and make passing dificult, aside from making historic tracks obsolete : the cars just dont fit !

    1. The more I look at it, the more I like it. It looks fresh and new.
      If I were Mercedes, I would make a more bold use of their beautiful star logo, wich is GORGEOUS. Maybe on the sides behind the driver, a huge star in fluorescent white over a shadow of darker metallic grey ?
      And also the star on the front nose of the car should be done in a clear color. The whole point of the black handsprayed area on the nose is to highlight the star. Maybe if the star is white, the black handspraying could be medium gray instead.

      In any case, I like it a lot
      Cheers

      1. And the large Petronas name on the side could have a white outline around the black so it would be more visible.

  30. Beautiful, love how the lines down the side of the “bonnet” hark back to brawns black and fluoro ones.

  31. I quite like it. Finally a proper silver car. All the McLarens from 1997 onwards were either grey or chrome-coloured.

    The black bit on the nose makes it look fat, though.

  32. I’d say this livery looks like a bad photoshop job but I wouldn’t even give it that much credit.

    Those black flashes looks like the spray tool on microsoft paint, especially the one on the side behind the drivers head. The turquoise as well looks like they’ve just run over the paint and thought ok that’ll do. What were they thinking?

    1. That’s exactly what I thought. It looks like they let a kid in a hoodie loose with a few spray cans on Jenson’s old car. They deserve a lot of points for not going with acres of hideous turquoise, but especially where Mercedes has replaced Brawn along the engine cover, it just looks sloppy. I loved the Brawn cars, they were so easy to spot, striking, and clean and the yellow was just noticeable but not overwhelming. Of course they’ve got Fry’s failure to get sponsors to thank for the car’s clean uncluttered looks, but hey.

  33. The green makes me wanna puke!!!

    The fluorescent on Brawn looked awesome. They should have used that instead of green

  34. Guys the 2010 season has just started.Is it me or really the car is looking heavy in front with all sorts of aero package.

    Do you know Martin Whitmarsh McLaren Chief Executive Officer also attended the launch.

    1. That is still the 2009 car so maybe its just the different paint job making it look like that, but it is the 2009 car NOT the 2010 car.

  35. Looks nice, but anyone who has been to the building will tell you that the architectural design, out shines that car by a long way.

    1. The Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart? I really want to go there.

      1. Yeah, i went on an architectural study trip to germany last year and went there, its amazing. There’s a porsche museum not too far away either. I think i got too excited though, i ended up getting ill which i put down to how ridiculously excited i was in there.

  36. Looks pretty cool. I was a bit worried when the mock-up was released a while back butthis is a pretty decent livery.

  37. The black/carbon fiber effect on the nose and streaming back to the cockpit ruins the livery for me. It would be better, I think to have subtle blue/turquoise there instead mimicking the lines on the BGP001.

  38. So they’re putting Petronas turqoise on the car and trying to pass it off as a tribute to Brawn’s fluoresecnt yellow?

    Or are they just referring to the black stripes?

  39. Mercedes must have just wanted to get the formalities out of the way by this launch. The new car the W01 will not necessarily look like this when we first see it at the 1st Feb testing session. They may take public opinion onboard and alter the colour scheme. But then I’m only interested in the car and drivers and what they can do with it!

  40. I do not see any green or turqoise. Can anyone point out where to look?

  41. The black spray paint with Mercedes on it looks strange. Otherwise it’s pretty coherent design. I’m glad they’ve not gone overboard on the turquoise.

    1. The turquoise has been very smartly used in an understated way.
      I agree the black spray paint on the nose looks funny. It might have been better to have dark grey spray with a fluorescent white star.

  42. I really pity the Mercedes logo on the front wing. Its hardly visible in the black background.

    The same usually happened during the 07 & 08 season with McLaren. That stupid ugly endplate connector used to completely obscure the merc logo on the nosecone.

    http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/McLaren_MP4_23_FSG_Forum.JPG

    Stupid colour scheme.

    1. Cornia’s hot!

      But my thoughts at this moment are with HHF :( What a tragedy :( We could have very well seen him driving the very first silver arrows in 55 years.

  43. It’s interesting to see how this still evolved from the concepts already published a while ago.

    What I really want to compliment is that they made the effort of making the numbers on the car legible.

    1. What I really want to compliment is that they made the effort of making the numbers on the car legible.

      Hear, hear! They look really old-school as well with the circles.

  44. Not bad looking car. Shame they did not roll out this years new car, after all I thought that was the point…

    1. Seems to me they could do with a few more sponsors. I’m surprised not to see Deutsche Vermogensberatung or is it Deutsche Post on Michael’s helmet, or maybe I just missed it…

  45. I must say I really like it and the main reason why is it’s different.

  46. I can’t remember where i saw it but i thought that the Mercedes car was going to start with the innitials ‘RB’ (or just ‘B’ for Brawn) in it’s title for the year’s car.

    Wonder why they havn’t done that.

    Overall like the colour scheme, it just looks very clean and looks far better than the Brawn livery from last year. Now just want to know about the other liveries, any ideas as to what colour Sauber will be – please can they go back to their old blue, they’ve been too similar to Williams recently.

    1. I heard this too. RB is Red Bull’s code for the cars.

      If they want to have Brawns name in it have it as MB. Then it will be Mercedes-Benz or “Mr.Brawn” :P

    2. I remember reading something about this but I think the RB was only ever meant as an interim name for the car until the official launch.

    3. I can’t remember where i saw it but i thought that the Mercedes car was going to start with the innitials ‘RB’ (or just ‘B’ for Brawn) in it’s title for the year’s car.

      Some nonsense written by someone who wasn’t familiar with the model designation for Red Bull’s cars.

    4. I read that, too. In fact, it was more or less official: RB1 for Ross Brawn. I´m glad they changed their mind, ´cuz it was just an idiotic idea. What team calls his car like their team principal? That didn´t happen even when it was BrawnGP!!!

  47. Seems a bit of a damp squib just to launch the livery so close to testing and then _nothing_ regarding the car – oh well any excuse for a party I guess.

    And check out the wingmirrors.. they forgot to overspray those!

  48. I dunno what colour this is, but it looks like a boring white… overalls are plain bad. Maybe it is just the lights, we’ll just have to wait and see.

  49. I thought any sort of aerodynamic ‘winglets’ were banned?!

    This is starting to make the cars look ugly again, and I don’t understand how the teams get away with it!

    Clearly a barge board on the side pod.

    1. Its the 2009 Brawn so it was pretty much the same all last year winglets and all.

      On the livery, I like it…makes the car look a lot nicer than the Brawn highlighter pen job did.

  50. I really think Merc have got a cheek to paint the Brawn 2009 car in their colours. Primerily it was a Brawn / Honda design. Mercedes are strutting about pretending that they are the 2009 constructors champions. They may be on paper as the owner of the Brawn assets but not on merit.

    Whilst its great to have Michael back in F1 I really hope Alonso, Lewis, Massa and JB show him what the current crop are made from.

    I’m not against Mercedes, but you need to deliver before being bullish.

    1. Mercedes are strutting about pretending that they are the 2009 constructors champions.

      Looking at that quote from Dieter Zetsche I’d say they’re doing the exact opposite.

  51. José Baudaier
    25th January 2010, 20:45

    Nice livery.

  52. Well done Mercedes you managed to make a good looking car look good!

    Hopefully this all looks good on next years car hmm?

    Is it me or is that a new nose cone?

  53. It looks ok. And its SILVER. How utterly sick does Rosberg look in the main top picture while Scummy is all smiles. Its reminiscent of the podium at Imola 94.

  54. Silver with turquoise highlights is one of my favourite combinations, in fact the shirt i’m wearing now reflects that. Needless to say I like this, even if it is a little predictable /conservative(?) even. And I like the way they avoided using hard edges

  55. Looks ruddy awful to me and I think it will be terrible on tv. Not really one thing or another and rather insipid. But then I suppose McLaren have rather stolen the march with the chrome effect…

    1. o concur…wake. its better than the brawn livery…but that isn’t saying much at all. its a clean livery, but its also very uninspiring. i understand the silver arrows heritage n all that…but this is 2010…not 1950

      1. lol excuse the typos…”i concur” and i forgot to finish the other sentence….”wake me up when they decide to come with something better”

  56. Colours not looking very good especially because of green.
    BTW can anybody help what is the full form of ‘W’ in MGP-W01?

    Also i hope Mclaren’s livery is quite different and easily distinguishable from Mercedes.

  57. Great post! Looking forward to the 2010 season :)

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