The Mercedes-AMG F1 W08 EQ Power+ 2017 is a Formula One car designed and built by the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport team for use in the 2017 Formula One season. It only appears in Gran Turismo Sport, introduced in Update 1.23.
The car represented in the game is the #44 driven by Lewis Hamilton, who drove this car to his fourth Driver's Championship, scoring nine victories during the season. Additionally, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport also won the Constructor's Championship. The second driver, Valtteri Bottas, too won three races and finished third in the standings.
In addition to Hamilton's #44 car, an alternate version of the car, called the Mercedes-AMG F1 W08 EQ Power+ (Color Variation) 2017, is also available in the game. Apart from having different color options instead of the usual Petronas livery, both cars are otherwise identical.
Colors[]
Eleven colors are available for the "Color Variation" version of this car, they are unnamed in the game:
- White
- Silver
- Dark Gray
- Black
- Light Blue
- British Racing Green
- Blue
- Purple
- Red
- Orange
- Yellow
In the first five colors, there are Mercedes-Benz logos on the nose and engine cover; the remaining colors do not feature any branding on the car.
In-game description[]
The W08 EQ Power+ is a machine developed by Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport to compete in the 2017 Formula 1 World Championship.
Mercedes made a full return to F1 racing in 2010 after a 55 year hiatus. They were one of the top 4 contenders from their starting year, but gradually gained in strength year by year, and from 2014 to 2016 they achieved double Constructors' and Drivers' championship title wins 3 years in a row. So aside from the changes to match new regulations for 2017, there seemed to be no major change in philosophy for their machine.
However there were frequent scenes where the drivers seemed to struggle with the setup as compared to last year, and where the car was fast in mid to high speed corners, it seemed to struggle with tracks that contained many low speed corners.
The power unit said to have produced approximately 936 BHP was the most powerful out of the 2017 machines, and it was fast overall throughout the season. With Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas at the wheel, they achieved a fantastic 15 pole positions and 12 victories out of 20 races. Again this year resulted in a double title victory for Mercedes, winning both the Constructors' and Drivers' championship titles.
Acquisition[]
| Game | Purchase location | Credits | Other methods |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gran Turismo Sport (  v1.23+) |
Mercedes-Benz Brand Central | 2,000,000 | Regular version: Obtain all Gold lap times in the Lewis Hamilton Time Trial Challenge |
Trivia[]
- The car in-game is based on its appearance during the first four Grands Prix of the 2017 F1 season.
- Because of this, a number of aerodynamic features are missing or different, such as having a shorter shark fin.
- Additionally, the car lacks the #44 and British flag on the shark fin, which were added after changes in rules requiring teams to display driver names and racing numbers in a way that were clearly visible to spectators.
- The car's inclusion in Gran Turismo Sport was commemorated with a short trailer, released simultaneously with Update 1.23.
- Presumably due to licensing agreements, this is the only car in Sport that can't be entered in the Livery Editor. This limitation is also applied to its "Color Variation" version.
- This is one of seven licensed Formula 1 cars in the series, the others being the Ferrari F10, the F2007, the 97T, the MP4/4, the Honda RA272, and the Mercedes-Benz W 196 R.
- The steering wheel of the car contains Valtteri Bottas' part/homologation number ("2017-L00-0061 BOTTAS L16"). This error was fixed in version 1.25; the steering wheel part number now reads "2017-L00-0061 HAMILTON L16".
- The update also fixes a glitch where the car could have infinite acceleration when the fuel is empty.
- This car, along with its Color Variation version, were originally going to return in Gran Turismo 7, but didn't make it to the final game.
- This makes it one of four GT Sport cars not to reappear in Gran Turismo 7, the others being the Fittipaldi EF7, the Audi R18 TDI (Le Mans 2011), and the Mercedes-Benz AMG VGT LH Edition.