Mercedes W04 to be shown for first time today
2013 F1 season
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.
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Image © Mercedes/Hoch Zwei
Lamar Francois said on 2nd February 2013, 21:52
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
Nick Jarvis (@nickj95gb) said on 3rd February 2013, 1:18
well done mate!
Grosjean´s smile (@testacorsa) said on 3rd February 2013, 11:02
Good work there. thx.
Hairs (@hairs) said on 2nd February 2013, 22:10
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.”
Nick Jarvis (@nickj95gb) said on 2nd February 2013, 22:32
that is actually an A* comment.
Keith, you here? ;)
rambzamba said on 3rd February 2013, 1:32
A++ :D
hoshinotetsu said on 2nd February 2013, 22:23
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.
robfff said on 2nd February 2013, 23:58
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.
Shrieker (@shrieker) said on 3rd February 2013, 0:02
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…
Steven (@stjuuv) said on 3rd February 2013, 1:21
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.
Mallesh Magdum (@malleshmagdum) said on 3rd February 2013, 5:14
@stjuuv unable to access. Maybe u can hack in and get the file out
^Mo^ said on 3rd February 2013, 8:33
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?)
Steven (@stjuuv) said on 3rd February 2013, 12:43
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.
^Mo^ said on 3rd February 2013, 16:28
@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).
alenpetak11 said on 3rd February 2013, 2:59
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-91u01fyyHjI/UQ3OSvE0SwI/AAAAAAAAABo/17WSaQysQH0/s557/Image5.bmp
Advocat said on 3rd February 2013, 10:35
The door open now, but no lights
robfff said on 3rd February 2013, 10:41
Looks like last years car.
Advocat said on 3rd February 2013, 10:49
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.
Bullfrog (@bullfrog) said on 3rd February 2013, 19:09
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.
marcus hand (@wombat1m) said on 3rd February 2013, 11:13
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!
Ben (@scuderia29) said on 3rd February 2013, 12:12
so when will the car be launched?? :S some terrible quality digital picture in a fake garage is the release? :S
N said on 3rd February 2013, 12:47
The car was always going to be launched on monday, yesterday was just suppose to be a teaser.
JimmyTheIllustratedBlindSolidSilverBeachStackapopolis III said on 3rd February 2013, 14:01
be fair its better than the redbull jokeathon!
vinicius.jlantunes (@vinicius-jlantunes) said on 3rd February 2013, 12:57
I have no patience for this :-P
Brace (@brace) said on 3rd February 2013, 13:13
http://img294.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=989038810_mercedes2013_122_508lo.jpg
petebaldwin (@petebaldwin) said on 3rd February 2013, 14:39
http://i47.tinypic.com/n1t9o0.jpg
Marcus (@jadedwriter) said on 3rd February 2013, 16:56
Every time I see that picture I expect there to be a photoshopped platypus or a dolphin.