Before announcing his retirement just days after winning the 2016 drivers world championship, former Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team driver Nico Rosberg, was given a sneak peek of the squad’s 2017 challenger.
The German was excited by what next seasons cars will bring to the competition, and even though the machine was not quite at the completion stages when Rosberg saw the design, he still got the feeling that the cars would be much quicker and more thrilling to drive next year, as he explained to F1i.com recently.
“For the eye, it looks great, it’s going to be enjoyable for them to drive, it will be faster.
“It will shuffle things up as every team has to start from scratch, it’s not an evolution, it’s a revolution.
“Every team starts from zero on a blank sheet of paper to build this car, it’ll be exciting to see who’s fastest.”
The Brackley based squad’s team of designers, engineers and mechanics have been working on next year’s model throughout the 2016 season, so when the German viewed the W08, it will have been in the final stages of production.
“In November, I had the opportunity to see a model of the future car in the wind-tunnel. I therefore got a detailed look of what it will look like, and it was really impressive.”
Having dominated the championship since the last raft of rule and regulation changes were brought in back in 2014, which saw the introduction of a hybrid era that played right into their hands, Mercedes will be hoping they can once again take advantage and continue their status at the top of the order.
Rosberg meanwhile will take up his new role as Ambassador for the Mercedes F1 team, now that he has plenty of free time on his hands.
