Mercedes W04 to be shown for first time today

2013 F1 season

Posted on

| Written by

Mercedes will give the first view of their new F1 car on their website later today.

In a novel step, the speed of the launch will be determined by how often people post the hashtag #F1W04Reveal on Twitter.

According to the team: “Each Tweet will trigger the opening of a garage door on our website, behind which is hiding the new F1 W04. And the faster you retweet it, the faster the car will be revealed.”

The event will begin on Mercedes website from 4pm UK time.

The formal launch of the car will take place at Jerez on Monday.

2013 F1 season


Browse all 2013 F1 season articles

Image © Mercedes/Hoch Zwei

Author information

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...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

133 comments on “Mercedes W04 to be shown for first time today”

  1. The site is crashing just from the announcement so good luck getting on it for the launch.

    Still an absolutely brilliant and novel idea, Kudos Mercedes.

    1. @tommyb89 The site has been down for over half an hour since the car was supposed to be revealed. Oh dear…

      1. JimmyTheIllustratedBlindSolidSilverBeachStackapopolis III
        2nd February 2013, 17:01

        Looks like the mercedes server got merced…. init bruv.

      2. Maybe no one sent tweets, so it did not even start the process of opening anything? thought not, another team underestimating online interest then.

        1. Have the tweets stopped? Is that it? Big of a joke.

          1. So instead of high quality videos and photos, the Mercedes brainwave for launching their new car has ended up with people circulating what looks like a photocopy done sometime in the 1970s? Great marketing job.

      3. And now the “Mercedes SuperDome” has an issue with the lights going out during the game. Not a very good weekend for the Mercedes brand. This whole launch was a good idea to generate interest, but the execution is horrible.

        I am trying to be supportive and like Mercedes but they are making it hard. Just show us the bloody car already!

    2. THEY JUST MADE FOOLS OF A FEW PEOPLE TWITTERING FOR NOTHING

  2. What an interesting idea!

  3. Brilliance at it’s best!!
    I hope they are just as brilliant in their design of the car!!
    Good luck Lew and Nik!

  4. Haha, great idea! Definitely a very good way to create more interest and publicity for the team.

    I wonder if it was Hamilton’s idea…

    1. Wishful thinking! Hamilton is not known for his good ideas ;)

      1. Not known for his good ideas doesn’t mean he can’t come up with one, does it, mate?

        1. He is not that intelligent. A miracle would be that mercedes comes up with the fastest car but don’t don’t get your hope too high regarding hamilton’s intelligence. That’s never going to happen.

          1. Can you phrase what you said in proper English, I can’t understand what you’ve said.

      2. Based upon what ?

    2. I agree, that’s a brilliant idea! Does this mean to say then that technically speaking Mercedes are unveiling their car today?

      1. JP (@jonathanproc)
        2nd February 2013, 13:12

        I believe so, but I’m only expecting a single picture that will hide anything interesting and worth looking at.

        1. I agree. It’s probably just front on view of it in the garage. We’ll only really get an idea of the livery and the front profile I suspect. We should be able to see wether or not they’ve gone for the modesty panel though.

      2. Depends how much of it they show us!

        1. Well, as at 2310 the garage door is only half open. Seems a bit of a damp squib?

      3. Good points @jonathanproc, @jleigh & @keithcollantine! I wouldn’t imagine Mercedes would want to lose publicity at the official unveil by showing the car prematurely! Perhaps they’ll show us a tyre if we’re really lucky…

    3. Maybe they’ll show us some telemetry as well, and drawings for the next upgrades, if enough people get involved…

    4. I’m quite sure it wasn’t Hamiltons idea. That said hes well known for his twit-ter history :p

    5. They’re just trying to release it before Hamilton tweets a picture of it.

      1. Maybe that would be better. Right now it’s like watching grass grow.

        1. Yeah, for real. The website’s back up, but it’s nothing but a blurry wallpaper featuring the top of Schumi’s head.

  5. JP (@jonathanproc)
    2nd February 2013, 13:22

    “The event will begin on Mercedes website from 4pm UK time.”

    So, the earliest we can possibly see the car is 4pm. Does anybody know what time is the benchmark that will slowly be cut down? In other words when’s the latest we’ll see the car?

    1. Jerez tuesday

  6. isnt twitter hacked? will be a facepalm moment if the garage door never comes up! :P

  7. Fantastic idea ! I really cant wait to see it, but think it will go wrong some how. Maybe it needs so many tweets that the door doesnt open before the real reveal day ? Eitherway its nice to see a team getting the fans involved and a really smart idea.

  8. Great idea, novel and it gets the fans involved.

    Excuse me, I just need to go and spam Twitter…

    1. That helmet is really, how should I say it, Felipe Massa.

      1. William Brierty
        2nd February 2013, 15:25

        How can a helmet be slow and inconsistent?

        1. Hahah, no, what I meant is that it really reminded me of Massa’s helmet! But that was pretty funny!

        2. nice 1 :)

    2. isn’t nico the one that wears yellow(helmet, gloves, boots) ? wonder if he switched colors

      1. William Brierty
        2nd February 2013, 17:31

        I hear a rumour, just a rumour, that Rosberg’s new helmet is based on his dear dad’s. Mercedes have also confirmed that they will be fielding a “new look” for 2013, although I doubt the implications of that probably don’t extend beyond new t-shirts. I mean, how many types of silver are there?

        1. Maybe they’ll go for Graphite with a bit of white and re- Oh, wait…

        2. They could not paint them and just leave the stainless steel on show, like the original “Silver Arrows”

          Actually that’s never going to happen, but now that I’ve wrote that I really, really want it!

          1. If it turns out Mercedes’ W03 was made of stainless steel then perhaps we should actually have been more impressed with their performance!

          2. @cjpdk – there may be a problem with that because the cars are mostly carbon composite!

            @jerseyf1 haha!

    3. Ooh Beautiful!

  9. OmarR-Pepper (@)
    2nd February 2013, 14:15

    I just hope their TwitR doesn’t collapse! And by the way, is the door going to open slowwwwwwwwly? I mean, when the drivers unveil it more “traditionally”, it just takes seconds.

    1. @omarr-pepper – I interpreted it as there are going to be several doors; one will open everytime #F1W04Reveal is tweeted until all the doors are opened and the car is fully revealed.

      Whether the picture will give us any clues though remains to be seen!

  10. Funny that Mercedes should use twitter to launch the car after the trouble Hamilton has had with it!!

  11. Big idea => Bad idea as its brought down their web site :(

  12. AAAAAAAND the website is down.

    1. “We regret to inform you that a problem did occur. We are working on solving it to make the MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS website available again”

      Probably not the best time to mention your sponsors ;)

    2. Merc F1 = Facepalm !

  13. Site Down, maybe they just wanted more hits on their apparantely unpopular site!

  14. the one time this week i get to see a live launch and the website is down typical!

  15. @keithcollantine Shouldn’t the Mercedes Site link point directly to “http://www.mercedes-amg-f1.com” ? It is pointed to “https://www.racefans.net/2013/02/02/mercedes-w04-shown-time-today/www.mercedes-amg-f1.com” instead. Sorry if I’m wrong.
    Site is down anyway :( …

  16. I guess hamilton need to stay away of anything related to twitter, bad start of season reliabilty problems with a great idea that didn’t work : D

  17. Site still down an hour later.

  18. Jake Moon (@andwhatisdeletrazdoing)
    2nd February 2013, 17:00

    Since their website is down, Hamilton should tweet pictures of the new car, along with the blueprints, measurements, and all their telemetry!

  19. Geez… the site loads slower than than an HRT. Is there a 7 second rule for websites?

  20. Pathetic.

  21. i could see the website crash coming the second they announced they were going to unveil it today. It wasn’t a bright idea to announce the reveal only a few hours before it happens and then only have it in one location on a website that didn’t have the capacity to handle it… and during the weekend! I’ll check back in an hour or so

  22. 2013 Fail of the year :)

  23. This is absolutely brilliant – a comparison of all 2013 F1 cars so far (including Mercedes)

    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BCHR3NfCMAA7miq.jpg

    1. Brilliant. Cannot stop laughing.

      1. At least it doesn’t have a stepped nose ;)

    2. That’s fantastic!

  24. Wow, if twits are needed to get this car out of the garage, what are they going to need for qaulifying?

  25. They’ve tweeted a picture of where it would be by now. Looks like ‘modesty’ panel also, no step nose :] Cant see much else

    1. Don’t be so sure, just yet :P The Sauber appears to have no step nose at certain angles, and Mercedes could well have something similar…

  26. If Mercedes are going to be as fast as their workers speed to solve the problem in the server they are going to be last.

  27. So far no pictures?

  28. Site is still down.

    Nice idea, poor execution.

  29. CarnivorousPope (@)
    2nd February 2013, 20:13

    I can get in now

  30. Here’s what I managed to doctor so far…I’ll keep trying though. :)

    [IMG]http://i1273.photobucket.com/albums/y409/Aurorae15/AMG_zps9ba240e0.jpg[/IMG]

  31. OmarR-Pepper (@)
    2nd February 2013, 20:49

    Currently 8.48 right? and still just darkness, I wonder if that garage door needs some oil “3 in 1”

    1. lol hahaha

  32. I think the Mercedes F1 website is so dull and un-iteresting, i’m not surprised their launch is in a similar vein. I’m a huge Lewis fan so I’m trying to find anything to give me a motivational lift but I can’t help but notice Mercedes just doesn’t have the panache.

  33. Which will arrive first- Grosjean’s baby or the Mercedes? Any bets? :p

    1. grosjean’s baby ;)

  34. For what i can see from the preview on their site, it looks like similar to the 2011 Mercedes W02.

  35. hmmmmmm… sadly, wanna bet that Merc still didn’t solve the tire problems????? :(

  36. works fine for me

  37. To see the car (no need to wait!) :

    1. Copy the picture (e.g. take a screenshot or use Snipping Tool)
    2. Paste into PowerPoint
    3. Go to picture settings and increase brightness to around 93%

    You can now see the W01!

    Nose looks half way between Sauber and standard modesty panel. Definitely raised at the side by a dip running through the middle.

    Front suspension looks like it could be pull rod.

    Front wing same as started 2012 with.

    Sidepods standard.

    Livery same as before except extra green running along nose.

    1. On closer inspection nose looks very Sauber-like, with definite gap through middle so potentially a duct there.

      1. Yep that does work. Its not that the car is not there. They need to turn the garage lights on. Lol
        Very sharp pointy nose with a bit of a dip in the middle similar to Sauber, but smoother blending.
        You can see most of the car except the rear wing, but the back end is too dark to see any details.
        Sadly a bit of a fail it terms of the intent of the reveal.

        1. Oh and it does have wheels on lol

  38. Well that was a disappointing afternoon.

    1. That won’t be the last time that phrase is used in connection to Mercedes in 2013……

  39. Funny to see their web servers practically in meltdown while all we get is the car in shadow! Here’s my attempt running it through Photoshop – seems like the suspension is a pullrod. Nose reminds me somewhat of the 2009 Redbull with a bit of extra green on the livery!

    https://twitter.com/lamarfrancois/status/297823013037023232/photo/1

    1. Nick Jarvis (@)
      3rd February 2013, 1:18

      well done mate!

    2. Good work there. thx.

  40. This is a metaphor for @MercedesAMGF1’s last 3 seasons:
    “launch at 4 p.m.!”
    pre-race:”we’re going to be at the front!”

    “servers coming back up now!”
    Qualifying:”4th row is good!”

    “changing servers!”
    Post race: “couldn’t get the equipment working under the conditions.”

    “see you on Monday!”
    Next race: “we’re focusing on next year.”

    1. Nick Jarvis (@)
      2nd February 2013, 22:32

      that is actually an A* comment.
      Keith, you here? ;)

    2. A++ :D

  41. oh come on, where do you all see pull-rod? Or you think that it has so narrow upper wishbone? What you can see on the picture is actually front half of the upper wishbone and the push-rod. Rear half of the wishbone is behind the wheel. It’s a push-rod. Still shame to the Mercedes, I’ll not be surprised if “9 of 10” count will remain til Monday.

  42. I rate their site is based on a timer, and not twitter.. They said “Keep retweeting #F1W04Reveal and the car will be unveiled progressively between now and Monday”.

    Big letdown.

  43. They can’t even keep a single promise. This team will fall apart with Lauda and Toto prying their noses into everything they don’t have the slightest idea about. I pity Hamilton…

  44. Someone that is better at reading code should be able to reverse engineer the location of the pictures. So far I am pretty certain that the images should be located at http://assets.mercedes-amg-f1.com/car/assets/image/home/ and the swf file is pretty much ready to display them, but I haven’t been able to work out the file naming system.

    1. @stjuuv unable to access. Maybe u can hack in and get the file out

    2. The stage that is displayed comes from /car/stage.jpg. I would assume this gets overwritten every time they update it. The SWF will do a request to the server for a JSON response, which contains the url to the image that is shown. As far as I can see the SWF file itself doesn’t even know where and what the files are, it’s just pointed at it by the server.

      I do wonder about how it depends on twitter. The JSON response keeps saying 900 tweets till the next stage, however, between now and when I started looking, more tweets have been coming in but the count stays at 900. It’s possible that it does depend on the number of tweets, but that the updater will only look at certain intervals. It’ll be interesting to see what the json response is when the image is actually updated (perhaps later today?)

      1. The swf file has a section labelled “w04” and the code there is referencing something as “carXML”, where I would assume they will have a gallery of the car. Unfortunately, the only xml file I have located on their server is http://assets.mercedes-amg-f1.com/car/assets/xml/main_de.xml, which isn’t much use. The carXML file should probably already contain the information about the pictures in the to-be-revealed gallery.

        1. @stjuuv I don’t think it’s there. The carXML refers to the W02, and is used for something else I reckon. The important part (the part you’re seeing) is the TwitterRelease class. In there it refers to “w04”. It is used as an Id for a BulkLoader instance, and what is inserted is this image: http://assets.mercedes-amg-f1.com/—80—swf/stage.jpg. That url comes from http://assets.mercedes-amg-f1.com/car/js/content.json

          The swf file does not refer to any images directly (except a few exceptions, such as the next tweet button). All urls are retrieved from the server. So if the images are on the server already, the swf file doesn’t know about it (and neither does the xml).

  45. The door open now, but no lights

  46. Looks like last years car.

    1. Looks like w02 + w03. They’re told it will be absolutely new car. I think it’s rubbish not the good car. Sorry if did mistakes.

    2. It’ll still be quicker, because it has Lewis Hamilton in it. But I’m underwhelmed – I thought if anyone was going to throw the kitchen sink at their 2013 car, it would be Mercedes.

      Hopes resting on Toro Rosso now – at least they have a new design boss – but enough time & resources for an all-new car? We’ll see.

  47. After 18 hours of utterly screwing it up I can now see a faint outline of a car – Woohoo! An utter PR F@#$ up from concept through to execution. I make my living as a trade journalist and am stunned by how bad this is. Lewis stop buying jets and fire your Car’s PR people!

  48. so when will the car be launched?? :S some terrible quality digital picture in a fake garage is the release? :S

    1. The car was always going to be launched on monday, yesterday was just suppose to be a teaser.

      1. JimmyTheIllustratedBlindSolidSilverBeachStackapopolis III
        3rd February 2013, 14:01

        be fair its better than the redbull jokeathon!

  49. I have no patience for this :-P

  50. Every time I see that picture I expect there to be a photoshopped platypus or a dolphin.

  51. Good marketing idea for those who might enjoy, I don’t want to spoil your fun. Bad marketing idea for people like me who don’t like jumping through hoops to see photos of your soon to be displayed all over the web new race car only to find out your website has crashed anyway. I’m all involved in the tech world as a web designer and developer, social media manager and content provider, etc. But, this idea is bound to make more people unhappy than it will make happy. Especially when your website does not have all its ducks in a row ready to handle the demand. I chose not to participate in this scheme and laughed upon reading that the website crashed. Now, if folks were tweeting for a chance to win a free Mercedes, that might be something. A bit schlocky still, but at least some value added. Anyways, I can wait to see what their new car looks like. Hope it runs better than their website.

  52. And here it is. The no step in the nose. Very interesting front end
    https://twitter.com/nico_rosberg/status/298375389707894785/photo/1

      1. Lewis has posted a short clip of it driving past too

    1. Was just gunna post this :] cant wait to see more shots

  53. I don’t think it would win a prise

Comments are closed.