Ahead of the Winter Testing dates in Barcelona (late February/early March) and the first race on the 26th March in Melbourne – the teams have been launching their 2017 cars.

Although some information about the 2017 cars already leaked in late January with the images of the Manor MRT07 – this is the first view of many of the new 2017 vehicles.

Williams teased a video preview of the FW40 late last week and this has been followed by Sauber (being the first to fully unveil their vehicle), Renault, Force India, Mercedes and today, McLaren and Ferrari revealing their 2017 challengers.

The new wider swept back front wing is the first noticeable element of all the new cars – the regulations mean that the cars are becoming wider again – as well as the front and rear wings. On top of that the tyres are 25% wider – this indicates an increase in downforce, increase in grip and we should see faster lap times as a result of this.

The wider tyres mean that teams will have likely had to focus, in part, on reducing the drag coefficient as much as they can. This also seems to have had an effect on the rear wings – with the end plates shaped and curving in towards the lower part of the vehicle.

Another returning feature, that had very much disappeared in recent designs, is the large fin on the engine – this tends to be used to control air flow to the rear wing in yaw airflow – this shows an expectation of higher apex speeds than recent years.

It will be interesting to see how different the cars look as they line up for the first practice session in Melbourne – as there are often significant changes from the unveiling vehicle.