F1 car launch: Mercedes, McLaren, Alpine

Three more teams launched their cars : Mercedes, McLaren and Alpine.

Mercedes 2022: Back to Silver

The most anticipated car launch has finally taken place with Mercedes unveiling their W13 on Friday. Toto, George and Hamilton were all at the car launch with huge interest on what the W13 will look like.

More importantly though, it’s the first time Hamilton has spoken since his return to F1 was made official. Hamilton said: “I never said I’d stop, I love doing what I do, it’s a privilege. You feel like a family.

Returning to tradition after two years in a black livery, the Silver Arrows are back in silver. The revolutionary new rules giving them a fresh challenge in their bid to continue their winning streak.

McLaren 2022: MCL36 has more blue and papaya

McLaren launched their 2022 car resembling the Gulf livery in Monaco 2021, which was loved by everyone.

The Woking team is hopeful that F1’s new regulations, which are designed to promote overtaking and have reintroduced ground effect aerodynamics to the sport, could offer the opportunity to return to the front of the grid on a more permanent basis.

“Over the last year the team have been hard at work developing the MCL36. We want to take advantage of any opportunities we might find in the design and production of these new cars,” team principal Andreas Seidl said.

The car appears to follow a different design philosophy to the Aston Martin as well as that of Haas. Technical director James Key said his team had considered the distinctive and louvered sidepods on the Aston Martin, but opted for its more narrowly packaged design.

“I think, first of all, it’s nice to see diversity in the space of three car launches” Key said. “So it shows that some of the fears about all cars looking identical [under the new rules] isn’t necessarily the case.

Another standout feature of the MCL36 is its pull-rod front suspension layout. This is a departure from the push-rod designs that were common on the front of all 2021 F1 cars.

Alpine 2022: there is Pink, thanks to BWT

Alpine will contest the first two Formula One races of 2022 in a predominantly pink livery before switching to a different scheme for the rest of the season.

This year Alpine has a new title sponsor, BWT, which previously sponsored the Force India/Racing Point team between 2017 and 2020 when it ran an all-pink car.

To mark that new partnership Alpine has produced two liveries — a “real” one for the season, and a “flipped” one for the opening two races of the year.

Alpine, who’s drivers are Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon, will race in the pink livery at the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian GPs.

It will then switch to its regular livery for the rest of the season, where the Alpine blue is the predominant colour.

Barcelona Testing

There will be first stage of pre-season testing in Barcelona from 23rd to 25th February. However this will be a closed testing, with no live feed for the audience.