“This car is wide!” Hamilton narrates a lap in the W08

2017 F1 season

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Mercedes have release a video showing Lewis Hamilton taking the new Mercedes W08 for one of its first laps at Silverstone.

The world champions’ new car was launched on a wet and windy day at the circuit yesterday.

“This car is wide!” exclaimed the three-times world champion as he drove the W08 out of the pit lane. Regulations changes mean this year’s cars measure two metres across instead of 1.8m.

2017 F1 season

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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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27 comments on ““This car is wide!” Hamilton narrates a lap in the W08”

  1. This is super cool, haven’t been this hyped for an F1 season in a while. Who knew? Add a load of speed and I get interested again.

    Getting the times at Barcelona is going to be very exciting. 5 seconds faster is going to be pretty obvious through those bends. Crashes are going to be fairly spectacular this year n all!

    I really hope the extra grip from those tyres and the ability to get on the power earlier at all stages leads to some close racing, otherwise we’ll just have to accept a much better looking procession.

    1. I wonder how Rosberg is feeling now watching Formula 1 come alive for a new season. Surely he must get a twinge of regret as this was a huge part of his life for as long as he can remember.

      1. He got handed the WDC title that he wanted, so he should be feeling pretty happy with himself.

  2. This camera angle is wide!

  3. It’s a gorgous looking car, I enjoyed watching their launch it’s what F1 needs, reaching out to the fans …

  4. The sound of the PU is quite good IMO on this video

  5. Releasing video in 360 surround only is stupid. As stupid as TV stations showing 4:3 stretched into 16:9. Just make a normal video so we can appreciate what is happening. Is it that hard?
    Next they’ll show videos in the the braindead ‘phone portrait’ mode. Quality is dead in 2017.

    1. These 360 videos really annoys me :/

      1. You annoy me with your backwards attitude.

    2. How about we go back to chalk and slate? I love the 360 vids, if you don’t like it keep it at the same angle for the whole video. How is it a problem?

      1. I remember the old chalk & slate F1 coverage. Can’t beat it with all your young hipster gadgets.

    3. I thought it was quite nice to be honest, I could watch the thing several times from a different perspective (i.e. seeing the driver’s head move, watching the suspension arms at work, etc.) … but hey what do I know.

    4. I thought it was brilliant!

    5. I liked it, or at least I did apart from the bandwidth requirements. I had to select a 720HD mode to get it to run consistently. Maybe I wouldn’t like it if it was in a race, but for what this was about, i.e. a demonstration and first test run, it did a good job and was a nice touch. Now I know they were using some sort of wet weather tyres on the car.

    6. Stop moaning. This a just the type of content we need to see. I watched the normal view and then the driver and then panned around whilst he was driving. Amazing.

  6. His excitement is so infectious. Like he just got into an F1 car for the first time. Can’t wait.

  7. “The world champions’ new car was launched on a wet and windy day at the circuit yesterday.”

    They launched a car for Nico? ;)

    1. The world champions’…….not the world champion’s.

    2. Yes good point should have said ‘the triple world champion’s’

      That’s 3 bwana

    3. Well spotted. I think they are referring to Mercedes winning the Constructors’ Championship, but Nico is still on their payroll. What do other teams call themselves when they win the Constructors’ Championship and their WDC driver leaves or retires? The only example I can think of is what did Mercedes call themselves when they took over Brawn GP? Did they call themselves “World Champion’s” after the World Drivers’ Champion Jenson Button had gone to McLaren? I am sure there are other examples of this scenario in the past.

  8. Obviously missed the bit where he said “the car doesn’t really feel that much different, that much wider, except the tyres are bigger”.

  9. Lewis shouting “woohoo, I love my job” as he floors it and hits eighth gear is now one of my all time favourite F1 moments.

    1. I love his job too!

      1. Yup, time to offer him a swap…. He can sit in my cozy office with playmates and geeky coders…

        While I strap in for some murky rainy silverstone fun.

        I am sure he would write some good code in 8 hours, and I would last 100k of filming, driving slowly behind Mercedes filming car…

    2. Lovely to be paid millions to do a job you’d still do if you were paid nothing!

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