The title defender? Mercedes F1 launch the W10

Mercedes have launched the car that they will use to attempt to defend their titles, the W10.

Looking to challenge for their record-breaking sixth drivers and constructors championship, Mercedes have unveiled the car that they hope will solidify their place in the record books.

Releasing shots of an updated livery, the car still features the silver base colour, but features bolder accents to the cars scheme.

The teal lines on the car are bigger and brighter, whilst the light silver fades into a dark silver on the extremities of the car, such as the shark fin and the outer edges of the front wing.

"The 2019 season will be a new challenge for all of us,” said Toto Wolff, Team Principal & CEO of Mercedes F1.

"The regulations have changed quite substantially. We have to start from scratch, we need to prove ourselves again – against our own expectations and against our competitors."

Technical director James Allison highlighted the key areas for improvement in the evolution from the W09 to the W10:

"The handling of the W09 was a big improvement over the rather idiosyncratic W08,” said Allison.

“We managed to be competitive at tracks which had plagued us in recent years. However, notwithstanding this improvement, we were still not as good as some of our competitors at preserving the performance of the rear tyres.

"We have worked hard on the suspension and aerodynamic characteristics to deliver a car that will be much kinder to its tyres – enough, we hope, to allow us to be competitive at all phases of the race and at each track on the calendar."

Andy Cowell, Managing Director of Mercedes-AMG High Performance Powertrains added that gains had been made on the power unit side of development, too:

"We've made changes to the cooling architecture of the Power Unit, which hopefully provide aerodynamic benefit on the car and also provide efficiency benefit on the Power Unit – so, hopefully a win on both the chassis and on the Power Unit,” said Cowell.

“Right at the heart of the Power Unit is the conversion of fuel into heat release in the combustion chamber and useful work out of the crankshaft. We have made steps on the combustion efficiency and on the ERS system.

"The marriage between the turbocharger assembly with the MGU-H, the inverter, the cells and the MGU-K: that whole system is now capable of operating more efficiently and helping with energy deployment through a race.”