Lewis Hamilton, Toto Wolff, Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes W11, Silverstone, 2020

Mercedes announce March launch for new ‘W12 E Performance’ F1 car

2021 F1 Season

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Mercedes will launch its car for the 2021 F1 season on March 2nd.

The world champions’ new car will be officially called the Mercedes-AMG F1 W12 E Performance. The new ‘E Performance’ designation will also appear on all forthcoming Mercedes-AMG hybrid road cars.

Valtteri Bottas was confirmed to drive for the team again in 2021 during the 2020 season, after finishing second in the world drivers’ championship and helping the team to secure their seventh constructors’ title.

Seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton is expected to continue with the team, but has not yet announced he has extended his contract, which expired at the end of last year.

The team will look to its new F1 car to continue the unbroken run of success it had enjoyed throughout the V6 hybrid turbo era. Mercedes has won every contractors championship and its drivers have claimed every title since the current power unit regulations were introduced in 2014.

Last year was its most dominant campaign since 2016. The W12’s immediate predecessor won 13 out of the 17 races, and took pole position for all bar two of them.

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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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21 comments on “Mercedes announce March launch for new ‘W12 E Performance’ F1 car”

  1. I wonder if they’ve made the cockpit of the ‘tub’ slightly more capacious, especially around the pedal box, just in case it is Russell instead of Hamilton

    1. I would hope they did given what seems to be a reluctance by Mercedes and Lewis to complete the contract for this season. One can’t be surprised if George isn’t already considered a serious option for this season. Knowing next to nothing about F1 cars, how difficult would it be to make the car to suit George?

  2. My theory now is that Toto just poached Pierre from RB, for €500k and a PS5 bundle.

    1. @RocketTankski Nice one.

  3. So will they announce Hamilton’s contract on that day?

    1. I doubt it. If you announce it a week earlier you get into two “news cycle” instead of just one cycle if you announce both news on the same date.

  4. So the colour of the car in the picture is a mix of silver and black. Wonder whose preference will prevail come the day?

    Plus white racing overalls.. we can but hope the virtue signalling is dialled down 11 notches this year

    1. Engaging in and/or supporting global issues and initiatives such as injustices, human rights abuses and actions to improve our environment are not virtue signalling.
      If you don’t care or are indifferent, that’s fine but don’t belittle those making an attempt to help an support.

      1. There’s a big difference between campaigning for an end to judging people by the colour of their skin and spreading misinformation about the difficult job done by police in the US. The governing bodies recognised this and clamped down on Hamilton, I highlight him because it was he who was the culprit.

        Everyone else dutifully wore the T-shirt with end racism written on it, who would argue with that, but it’s not enough really is it? When a driver breaks with the message and singles out one skin colour as ‘mattering’ it devalues those in greater peril, for example the Uighars in China, that’s just ignorance of the realities of the world.

        As for the environment, well, you can’t race in F1 and pretend to care, that’s just nonsense. It may be the underlying reason he hasn’t re-signed for this year.

        1. @frasier there are still a lot of very questionable aspects about the organisation of police forces in the US that should be raised though.

          In 2017, for example, there was a rather prominent case where a group of police officers were recorded openly boasting to each other how their supervisors were telling them they would be allowed to use excessive force against protestors attending a protest against police brutality, and how much fun they were planning to have beating up protestors. It gained considerable notoriety because the person whom they attacked – who ended up having to have surgery for spinal injuries – was in fact an undercover police officer.

          After that incident, that police force was investigated for evidence of further misconduct, and that investigation threw up a lot of concerns – evidence came forth of officers exhibiting racial bias, of illegally using chemical agents against non-violent protestors, of deliberately removing police cameras to prevent evidence of police violence being recorded and the falsification of post-event reports to cover up misconduct. The local attorney recommended a federal investigation should be held into that police department over their behaviour – only to be told that Trump’s appointees were refusing to listen, resulting in the investigation being dropped.

          Jeff Sessions has also publicly confirmed that, from 2017 onwards, he actively instructed federal agencies to not investigate or prosecute police departments, even when investigations by the Justice Department found major faults with police action.

          For example, in Chicago, Sessions has publicly stated that the Chicago police force had “a pattern of abuse that justified a lawsuit to protect our constitutional liberties.”, as the Justice Department delivered a devastating critique of a police force that routinely used excessive force to an almost sadistic degree. However, Sessions himself refused to allow the Justice Department to commence legal action against the Chicago police force.

          Similarly, we also know that, in 2018, Sessions appointed an independent consultant to review how a number of police organisations were run. Now, that independent consultant presented a report to Sessions which, amongst other items, recommended that better screening was necessary to reduce the number of racist and excessively violent people selected to become police officers, as well as also stating that the police should not be able to destroy police officer discipline reports every couple of years, which meant there were no proper records of misconduct by police officers in the USA.

          However, the indication from Sessions’s former aides is that, because the report did not align with Sessions’s political beliefs – with Sessions actively wanting a “hands off” approach – he deliberately ignored it.

          Indeed, Sessions’s successor, Barr, actively intervened in Seattle in July 2020 when he blocked an attempt by the city authorities to enforce a 2012 legal instrument against the police department’s use of “unnecessary and excessive force” by stopping them from using certain chemical agents for riot control, despite the previous ruling that the police force in that city had overused those agents.

          There have been several cases where issues with racial bias and the excessive use of violence has been raised in connection with US police departments, and also evidence that, at least under Trump, there was an active policy of deliberately refusing to investigate police departments facing such complaints on purely ideological grounds.

          1. You and I understand such issues but I’m afraid no matter the evidence, there are always going to be those who either will question it or deny it!
            So I’d kindly suggest you don’t waste your energy on such persons…

          2. @frasier
            That I believe, is the W11 at launch, as you would probably already know, so referencing the livery and the overalls, is, as far as I am concerned, deliberately antagonistic

            and as your reply from anon goes, I think that is what they call,

          3. a mike drop

          4. Andy Ngo reporting events in Rochester, presumably last night

            https://twitter.com/johncardillo/status/1356574557088452609

            Nothing new, it was happening for a large part of last year including a hilarious piece to camera from a reporter in front of burning cars declaring it was a ‘largely peaceful demonstration’

            Honestly, you couldn’t make it up.

          5. Having said the magic words V…..S………” aren’t you supposed to drop the mike and leave?
            Four people wobbling a gate (while another guy fully Kumbayas it up behind them) to protest a 9yr old girl being pepper sprayed after being handcuffed isn’t a threat to anyone (or democracy) – the RPD suspended the officers.

    2. Wolff has already said they will stick to the black. But maybe a different design? Probably an easy decision as it looks pretty stunning in black.

    3. Comments like this really worry me

  5. Roth Man (@rdotquestionmark)
    2nd February 2021, 22:20

    Am I missing something, does the season not start in February?

    1. Roth Man (@rdotquestionmark)
      2nd February 2021, 22:22

      Ignore me. Not sure where I got that from

      1. That was my first reaction too then my brain caught up :)

  6. I really wish it could be a proper W12 engine in there!

Comments are closed.