Mercedes strip paint from car in quest for 'all out performance' in this year's F1 World Championship

Lewis Hamilton and team-mate George Russell will tackle the new campaign – which fires up in Bahrain on March 5 – in a black machine with Mercedes ditching its traditional silver livery.

However, unlike in 2020 and 2021 when Hamilton called on the Mercedes hierarchy to transform their cars from silver to black in a defiant message against racism, they have this year ditched the paint brush in a bid to save weight and improve performance.

The exposure of raw carbon fibre leaves a black finish on the challenger Hamilton hopes will carry him to a record eighth world championship.

“We were overweight last year and we were carrying a weight penalty,” said Hamilton. “There has been a heavy focus to make sure that is not the case this season.

“Last year the team thought we were going to be on weight and instead we were well over, so I am glad that it has been taken seriously.

“What we see on the car is a lot of carbon fibre and not too much paint, the bare minimum.

“That is positive because it means we are all out for performance and not how it looks, but how quickly it goes.”

Hamilton, who spent the majority of F1’s three-month off-season in the United States and Antarctica, recorded his worst championship finishing position last year after the Silver Arrows failed to master the sport’s new regulations.

He lost his record of winning at least one race in every season of his career – a streak which stretched back to his debut campaign for McLaren in 2007 – and finished sixth in last year’s standings, 214 points adrift of runaway winner Max Verstappen.

Hamilton, who is entering the final year of his current £40million-a-season deal, will be banking on his team to right the wrongs of 2022, allowing him to challenge rival Verstappen and Red Bull.

But there was certainly a sense of caution in the Silverstone air on Wednesday as Hamilton and Russell took the wraps off their new car.

Indeed, perhaps tellingly, boss Toto Wolff elected to use the word “eventually” when evaluating the prospect of Mercedes winning again in the team’s official press release.