Mercedes W06 revealed testing at Silverstone

2015 F1 season

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The car which Mercedes hope will allow them to defend their constructors’ championship and which Lewis Hamilton will use to seek a third drivers’ title has broken cover.

Mercedes has revealed the first video footage of its new car, the W06, running at Silverstone today.

The team conducting a filming day with Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton driving the new car ahead of the first test which begins at Jerez on Sunday. The car covered 18 laps but inclement weather prevented further running.

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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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95 comments on “Mercedes W06 revealed testing at Silverstone”

  1. Shame the nose looks less attractive than last year

    1. The noses look even more likely to ramp another car into the driver’s face.

      1. Let’s hope it doesn’t happen… But must agree!

    2. You are putting it as if it was Mercedes’ fault…..

    3. The nose looks great! Best looking F1 car (from the front) since 2008.

    4. I would say exactly opposite to that.

      1. Yes, front view is great.

      2. I agree

    5. I prefer this year’s nose. However, I prefer last year’s livery.

      1. Last year’s livery? I would say it’s practically the same… http://img.motorpasionf1.com/galleries/mercedes-w05/MercedesW05_4.jpg

    6. I think the nose of the car looks quite good……but I seem to remember from the first test to the first race last year, quite a few teams altered the front wing design…..so lets judge then

    7. I think it is much better than last year.

    8. Shame the others are not well prepared as Mercedes!

  2. Man, she is one sexy looking beast!

  3. The rear looks weird, even on their next video.
    http://i.imgur.com/yb0voLa.png

    1. I’m Guessing not all the rear body work is on.

  4. Looks good and quite interesting around the back. Nose looks conventional, but quite thin. But the potato might be deceiving us.

    1. potato – lol

  5. Does that look like chrome to anyone, I cant tell. But since the reports of McLaren changing there livery was wrong the rumour about Mercedes chrome may also just be a rumour.

    1. Three ‘silver teams’ out of nine. How is that possible?

      1. Could be more than that. Maybe the Sauber is silver with a thin blue stripe round the cockpit. And we haven’t seen the Ferrari yet…

    2. @addimaf1 Lots of talk about neither team actually running their final liveries…

  6. Compare With FW37,E30,MP4-30
    The Mercedes W06 looks much better than that
    Hopefully this year the stability can be improve

    1. Quite right. Best looking car so far!

  7. Looks great.

  8. I heard that the 2015 car was going to be a chrome colour all over. That looked like last year’s colours.

  9. I never went to any of the races last year, but did the engine sound exactly like that in person if so, why oh why was everyone complaining, I think that sounds amazing and that’s only one of the 18 or 20 cars

    1. The sound is similar but it seems louder than last year-
      https://amp.twimg.com/v/c951ae9a-02f7-4e1b-b1dd-8e96d6c7e3ae

      1. Got the same feeling. It seems louder this year.

        1. Or that may just be due to less incompetent sound production applied to the footage. The first, non-FOM, sound samples of 2014 all sounded reasonably good, but as soon as the cars hit the track in official sessions, they started sounding somewhat less impressive. There’s a sect of tinfoil hat wearers (including me) that doesn’t want to rule out the possibility that this might somehow be related to Bernie Ecclestone’s extremely vocal criticism of the new engine regulations that were mostly decided while ignoring what he had to say (or rather: pester) about it.
          Could a man as powerful as he is resort to sabotage to promote his own agenda? Let’s just say that I’ve excluded theories that seemed far less likely, but then slammed into my face.

          1. @nase I think the issue with the sound on TV last year was more the individual broadcasters than FOM as the audio on the raw satellite feed’s coming straght from FOM which I got to hear a few times last year was fine.

            There was also big differences between broadcasters, The track audio on Sky was louder than it was on the BBC for instance & the audio on Fox in the US was way quieter than most others which I got to hear.

            Its also noticeable looking at the in-car camera shots. On the main broadcast on all networks the in-car audio was fairly quiet, But on the in-car camera feeds coming straght from FOM the cars sounded way louder.

            The broadcasters tend to play around with the audio mix to get there commentary audio levels as they want & to downmix the 5.1 audio to stereo if that broadcaster isn’t outputting in 5.1 & all that will affect the audio levels we end up hearing.

            Something else to take into consideration with fan videos & stuff is that the microphones on a lot of these devices (Smart phones, tablets & digital image cameras) tend to be lower quality so will distort the sound & that will often make it sound louder than it actually is.

          2. @PeterG:
            What you say makes an awful lot of sense, but the thing is: I like my tinfoil hat.

        2. Mercedes have resorted to a traditional exhaust for the W06. From early testing last year they had a “sausage” style exhaust which muted the sound of the firings. They have ditched it this year releasing more sound straight into the turbine.

    2. I think the main complaint was the volume not quality of the noise. I think the car does sound a bit different, maybe a higher pitch somehow? If the engines are more powerful, does it mean they’re necessarily louder?

      1. @williamstuart No, a more powerful engine doesn’t necessarily mean a louder engine. You get V8s that are more powerful than V12s, but still make less sound. The F1 cars of the V8 era were less powerful than the V6s (with ERS), but obviously much noisier.

        1. ERS doesn’t contribute to volume though, only the ICE. I’d definitely prefer the engines to be able to reach 15,000 RPM, I think this would be a good compromise between having more comfortable (to listen to trackside) quieter engines and the louder previous generations.
          Maybe even if it’s only in qualifying trim.

      2. The main causes of the engines being quieter last season were the turbochargers and lower RPM. Turbochargers use exhaust gases to boost engine power, instead of just letting the exhaust gases exit like on a naturally-aspirated engine. This significantly reduces exhaust noise.

        Also, while the V8s often revved up to 18,000 RPM, the V6s were limited to only 15,000 RPM. In fact, they didn’t even reach this limit, generally only revving up to 12,000 RPM maximum (mainly due to the fuel flow rate limits, and I believe to a lesser extent also in order to aid reliability). This will have also contributed to a quieter engine sound.

        1. Do you think it’s possible for Mercedes to have increased the RPM from around 12,000 to higher? Or was it baked into the new regulations?

    3. I went to Silverstone last year, and the cars sounded much better than they did on TV – they were still quite loud to be honest (certainly not ear-splitting anymore though). They did sound quite similar to the sound in that video, although as RogerA pointed out the new sound seems a bit louder – however that’s difficult to tell from some mediocre-quality phone footage.

      What seems more discernible is that the engine is perhaps a slightly higher pitch – maybe they are going to be running higher revs this year? Last year the engines generally ran at only 12,000 rpm despite the limit being 15,000 rpm – maybe this year they will run closer to that limit.

      Although, with the engine limit being cut down to only 4 per season, I’m not so sure. It does seem possible though, particularly as the teams may have made some big strides in terms of reliability for this season.

      1. Also, in regards to my experience at Silverstone last year I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. In previous years I would wear some form of ear protection for most of the race to reduce the risk of damaging my hearing. In 2014, although the sound was quieter than in previous years, it meant that I didn’t have to wear any ear protection, so in a weird way they were effectively louder!

        The quieter cars meant the atmosphere was quite different to when I have been in previous years (maybe not quite as adrenaline-pumping), but you can still hear them from a while away, and it was quite nice to be able to actually hear if someone tries to talk to you! Plus you can hear a range of sounds such as tyres squealing during a lock-up that you wouldn’t have been able to hear in previous years. The turbo noises are pretty sweet as well, particularly while braking/downshifting.

        It did seem quite odd to have GP2 and GP3 cars being louder than the F1 cars, but I think it’s kind of cool: the GP2/3 cars still produce the old V8 scream, and because their races are only an hour or two before the F1 race, you can still experience the old V8 noise on the day if you really miss it, while still being able to watch the F1 race without having to wear earplugs for 1 and a half hours.

      2. The fuel flow rate is constant after 12,000 revs, so there really is no reason to run much above that RPM. Now if they would only let the cars use more fuel………………

    4. To me the sound is very similar, maybe a tad louder., if that. But ill hold judgement until im at the Melbourne GP. I personally love the new Mercedes, just enought updates but not too much. It just looks fast

  10. I live not far from Silverstone and its been snowing today. Wonder how the W06 might handle in the snow and ice!

  11. Is Nico using Lewis helmet on the second photo? Hahaha

    1. He wanted to know what it feels like inside a champion’s helmet :)

    2. Both drivers are there

      1. Saw it now.

  12. You say Nico Rosberg is driving yet some of those pictures have hamilton in the car, or rather Hamilton’s helmet in the car. The only other person I can think is that young reserve driver they signed (forget his name) He has a helmet similar to Hamiltons.

    1. Hamilton is also there, he was in a video on twitter.

    2. Article is wrong in this respect

    3. @woodyd91 To be clear, the article was updated several times as Mercedes were very slowly putting out information about what they were doing.

      @sato113 In its previous draft the article said Rosberg drove the car first, which is true, and did not say Hamilton hadn’t driven it.

  13. That looks exactly like the #W05 car

    1. Exactly (but not). The nose is different, the livery has changed… Not yo be picky, but really exactly not the same. ;)

  14. Nose is similar to Williams’s one

    1. No. Now it’s clear.
      Williams has had the ugliest nose so far,I still hope their aero concept will pay off

  15. Wait I thought that teams cannot test their new cars on track without the approval from the FiA. The cars would have to be at least 2 years old to be tested freely.

    I remember Vettel had to drive a F2012 when I arrived at Ferrari. Ferrari’s 2013 and 2014 models are not allowed to run even in their own Fiorano Track.

    1. @ducpham2708 A test of this type is permitted as a Promotional Event as per the definition here:

      FIA overhauls testing rules after Mercedes row

  16. The sound of the car is pretty fantastic, in my opinion.

  17. I spy with my little eye…a thoroughly good-looking Formula 1 car…

  18. Wow, now with these new pictures, amazing car!

  19. Looks great from the front, reminds me of a Renault 3.5, or F1 nearly 10 years ago.
    Those cameras spoil the lines though! Almost as bad as the rabbit’s ears once used by the same team in a previous incarnation.

    1. Are those cameras even legal? I thought they all had to run standard camera mounts this year

  20. How? How? HOW?

    How has, amidst all the silly regulations and Williams noses, the chaps over in Brackley actually come up with a better-lloking car than last year?

    HOW?

  21. Not car-related, but Hamilton looks as though he’s got a gold-coloured visor!

    1. Snow visor

      1. He he, with heater elements so it doesn’t ice up.

  22. The sound in the fly-by is significantly different from last year’s Mercedes, isn’t it? And I don’t think it’s just the higher pitch there.

    1. yes, sounds more like a ferrari…

      1. I have to agree…it almost sounds more like a Ferrari. Whatever it sounds like, I’m agreeing with @chriju0411 that is sounds very different than last year. It could just be the acoustics of where they were recording from with echos at that spot, but it sounds COMPLETELY different than it did at Turn 1 of COTA last year.
        Higher pitched and less “throaty” bass.

      2. That’s bad news for me, because in my opinion, last year’s Ferrari V6 was probably the worst sounding F1 engine of all time.

        1. @ultimateuzair
          I should have been more specific: It didn’t sound like the Ferrari F1 V6, it sounded more like a Ferrari 458.

  23. looks very very similar to last year, slimmer nose. But why change a winning combination in the first place right? so rightfully so have it look like last years car. looks like another title winner for Merc.

  24. Is it just the angle of that front pic…or does it have huge air intakes on the sidepods this year???

  25. It doesn’t appear that Mercedes has fallen into the trap that McLaren fell in at the start of 2013. It would appear that this is nothing more than an evolution of the W05 Hybrid but with a new nose to comply with the regulations.

    It will probably be a completely different car at Jerez though… We shall see.

    Looks pretty slick by the way, just like the predecessor.

  26. Introducing the 2015 winner, Mercedes!

  27. Fritz Oosthuizen (@)
    29th January 2015, 20:00

    No my wife sexy. This car is just a German masterpiece.

    1. Agreed and agreed.

  28. It makes the nose on the Mclaren look HUGE!

  29. It looks cool! :)

  30. This is the kind of car you can set as your desktop background, from any angle you look at it.

  31. Am I the only one who really really hates how that petrobras green looks with the livery?

    1. Petrobras?

      1. LOL! petronas XD

    2. @goddamnvictor

      Not many people agree with me, but I don’t mind the green at all. I actually think it’s better then if it were only silver. And kind of a coll chromisu green.

      But then, I’d much rather see Blackberry’s black instead

      1. True, I really love the new black background on the top, kinda gives it character, but that bright pastel green is just weird

    3. Actually I think that petrol/green is one of the most appealing elements and accents of their livery respectively their corporate design and I’d like their livery to have feature much more of it. I love Mercedes’ post-race team-shirts (as seen on the victory celebration photos).

      1. Well, yeah, that would be an improvement, I could be a little more as in this one or even going crazy like in this one

  32. Bad nosejob…

  33. Expected colour scheme, nose looks better than last year, but the rabbit ears kinda strange.Front wing looks lovely.

  34. I think that looks really smart! Even nicer than the W05.

  35. I’m sorry, but I have to say… the camerawork in this filming day is just… awful – it’s mostly video of a wall which is thereby obscuring details of the car they are attempting to show to the world… Mercedes must be absolutely gutted to have wasted a precious day entirely dedicated to filming, only to yield results with such utterly amateurish production values. One would have thought they’d have used their engineering expertise to resurrect Federico Fellini in prototype cyborg form, especially to shoot the launch video in the snow, but no, it looks like some blind idiot was hired to do it on his smartphone.

    1. I really, really hope you’re joking.

  36. It’s understandable that one of the first shots we see is of the front end. That’s for the drivers’ benefit. During the season they might only recognize it from the back.

  37. Emmanuel olaoye
    10th March 2015, 17:03

    whats that funny bit in the front

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