The excitement ahead of the 2022 Formula 1 World Championship is certainly hotting up, however things have now gone to a whole different level as the Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team unveiled their challenger, which will hopefully guide them to a ninth Constructors Championship, the W13! The launch took place Friday morning, before the team completed a 100km shakedown test at Silverstone.
With the Mercedes AMG F1 W13 E Performance at their disposal, the Brackley-based team are looking to start a new era of Formula 1 the same way they started the last significant change back in 2014, with complete domination. With a confirmed and fired up Lewis Hamilton for 2022, alongside new team-mate but very familiar face George Russell, the Silver Arrows have all the ingredients for a successful campaign. In his move to Mercedes, Russell completes his journey through the Mercedes Young Driver Programme.
2022 see’s the sport’s most significant technical regulation change in a generation, the Mercedes factories at Brackley and Brixworth have both been hard at work over the past eighteen months, trying to identify every possible opportunity to unlock performance. Incredibly the W13 is 98% new and freshly designed from tip-to-toe with minimal similarities to the W12.
The team’s 2022 challenger is named the W13, due to it being the team’s thirteenth car produced by the Mercedes AMG team since re-entering F1 in 2010. In that time they have now won eight consecutive Constructors Championships, and seven consecutive Drivers’ Championships until 2021. Hamilton of course took the title with the team in 2014,15,17,18,19 and 2020, whilst the retired Nico Rosberg won his only title in 2016.
Team Principal Toto Wolff has played an instrumental part in the team’s success over the years, he and the entire team are incredibly excited about the season to come!
“Ever since work on W13 began, I have seen an excited enthusiasm in our team members like never before, thanks to the scale of opportunity that these technical regulations provide. Towards the end of the year when the car build project truly came together, I felt a deep passion across the whole organisation, not only in the technical arena but across our bases at Brackley and Brixworth who were embracing a mindset of ‘we can do this.
“We did pretty well during the last big regulatory change into the hybrid era and performed well when we went from the narrow to the wide cars in 2017. While we have a good track record, my message is clear: we can’t rely on past success for this year’s performance, but we can rely on our people, our culture, our structure, and our mindset to do the best possible job for 2022”
A New Driver Line-up for the New Era –
As mentioned earlier the sport’s most successful driver, seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton, has confirmed he is racing in 2022 despite rumours that he was feeling ‘disillusioned’ with Formula 1. The rumours began to circulate after the controversial ending to the 2021 season, this was met with a winter social media silence from Hamilton, who has since returned to all of his platforms.
For the second time in his long Formula 1 career, he will be alongside a fellow Briton, in the form of George Russell, making his full debut season for Mercedes in his fourth year in F1. Hamilton enters the 2022 season with 103 wins, 103 pole positions and 182 podiums as he targets a record eighth World Drivers’ Championship.
Despite having every single reason not to feel determined ahead of the 2022 season after the way 2021 ended, Wolff has incredibly said that Hamilton is feeling the complete opposite.
“I have never seen him more determined. Lewis is the best driver in the world, and he is joined by one of the brightest and most promising of their generation in George. I have no doubt that we can create an environment of partnership between the two, of productivity to develop this new car which will be essential, whilst maintaining a healthy competition that will motivate them and the wider team.”
After an impressive three years in Formula 1, Russell has proven to the world that he has an exceptional talent, now the young British driver will get the best opportunity to show is potential to the world. The former Williams Racing driver has apparently been a consistent figure in the factory over the winter, as he reinquates himself with the Mercedes set-up. Wolff is glad that Russell who joined the Mercedes Young Driver Programme in 2017, has returned home.
“George is just getting on with the job. I know he’s had a good winter of training and we’ve seen him in the factory, working on the simulator and with his engineers. This team has always been his home and therefore the transition to driving for us has been very smooth.”
A Return to Silver, for the Silver Arrows –
After two seasons using a black livery, Mercedes have reverted back to their original silver look for 2022. Mercedes made a visible commitment to promoting greater diversity and inclusion within their team and Formula 1, they were a leading figure in the Black Lives Matter and the We Race As One movements. As a result of research and work conducted by the team, they launched Accelerate 25, a detailed five-year programme to become a more diverse and inclusive team.
Mercedes Accelerate 25 programme commits them to ensuring at least 25% of all new team members who joined the team were from under-represented groups until the end of 2025. In year one of the programme, that figure reached 38%. Female employees have risen from 12% to 14% of their workforce and employees from minority ethnic groups have risen from 3% to 6% during 2021. Despite the impressive improvements made by the team, they recognise that there is still a long way to go.
Toto Wolff at the team’s launch, spoke about how becoming a more diverse and inclusive team has become part of their DNA going forward.
“The black livery was a clear intent and a clear demonstration of our mission to become a more diverse and inclusive team. It has become part of our DNA, but the silver colour of the Silver Arrows is as much our DNA, it’s our history. As a team we have grown from the Silver Arrows to slowly becoming a more diverse and inclusive team and therefore our colours going forward will be silver and black“
