Mercedes designing ’completely new’ 2013 car - Lauda

Mercedes is working on a "completely new car" for the 2013 season, Niki Lauda has revealed.

Lauda, the F1 legend and triple world champion, is Mercedes’ brand new non-executive chairman — the main link between the Stuttgart carmaker and the Ross Brawn-led, UK-based team.

With this year’s W03, Nico Rosberg won in Shanghai and Michael Schumacher lapped the quickest in qualifying at Monaco, but otherwise the silver machine has often been a disappointment.

With the regulations staying essentially stable next year, ahead of the radical changes for 2014, most teams are working on evolutions of their current cars for next season.

But with Lewis Hamilton arriving from McLaren for 2013, simply evolving the W03 is not going to be Mercedes’ approach, Austrian Lauda suggested to the broadcaster RTL.

"We are working on a concept for a completely new car. The current one is simply not fast enough," he said.