With the launch of Mercedes’ 2023 challenger being just one week away, fans have started to speculate as to what the W14 might look like, with many hoping for the return of one feature.
Mercedes will be hoping that the W14 will see the Silver Arrows return to the front of the field in the forthcoming season, after the outfit suffered their worst season since the introduction of the turbo-hybrid era in 2014.
The Germans slumped to third in the 2022 Constructors’ Championship and claimed just the one win, with the side having struggled to adapt to the new aerodynamic regulations.
Throughout the off-season, though, the Brackley-based team have been working hard to ensure that the W14 is a race winner, with the belief being that they’ve solved, and most importantly, fixed the issues that ridiculed them last year.
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One thing that several fans are hoping for is that Mercedes will have made a big livery change, after returning to Silver in 2022.
Fans are eager to see a return of the black livery that the team used in 2020 and 2021, in the team’s stand against racism and discrimination.
“Racism and discrimination have no place in our society, our sport or our team: this is a core belief of Mercedes,” team principal Toto Wolff said in 2020.
“But having the right beliefs and the right mindset isn’t enough if we remain silent.
“We wish to use our voice and our global platform to speak up for respect and equality, and the Silver Arrow will race in black for the entire 2020 season to show our commitment to greater diversity within our team and our sport.”
Mercedes returned to Silver in 2022 due to the colour being their “history”; however, Wolff stressed that the black livery had become “part of our DNA”.
“The black livery was a clear [statement of] intent and a clear demonstration of our mission to become a more diverse and inclusive team,” Wolff said at the team’s 2022 launch.
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“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.”
With all of that in mind, a fan has designed a concept of what they hope the W14 will look like, with the inclusion of the black livery.