Following the 2012 season, team principal Ross Brawn restructured the engineering department substantially. Aldo Costa arrived from Ferrari, as did Geoff Willis from the defunct HRT team, and Mike Elliott joined from Lotus. On the management side, Norbert Haug — Mercedes' long-standing Vice President of Motorsport — departed, replaced by Toto Wolff, who left Williams to take the role. The car was revealed at Jerez on 4 February 2013 by both drivers.
The W04 displayed impressive one-lap pace throughout the season, frequently qualifying at the front of the grid. In the first five races alone, Hamilton and Rosberg secured two podium finishes and three consecutive pole positions. However, the car developed a damaging reputation for tyre wear during a period when Pirelli's compounds faced widespread criticism for their fragility and narrow operating window. The W04's inherent characteristics exacerbated these issues.
The consequences were starkly illustrated in Bahrain and Spain, where Rosberg qualified on pole for both races but finished ninth and sixth respectively, unable to manage his tyres through race distance. This pattern — strong Saturday, weak Sunday — characterised much of the W04's season.
Bright spots did emerge. Rosberg won in Monaco, repeating his father Keke Rosberg's victory on the same circuit in 1983. At the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, Rosberg won despite a tyre failure for Hamilton while leading. Hamilton's first win for Mercedes came in Hungary, where he managed his tyres effectively from pole position after a season of early race struggles. Belgium followed with a third-place finish for Hamilton.
Additional podium finishes came in India and Abu Dhabi. The season ended in Brazil where a late incident dropped Hamilton out of the points, but Rosberg's fifth place was sufficient to secure the team second place in the Constructors' Championship — a dramatic turnaround from fifth in 2012. Hamilton finished the season fourth in the Drivers' Championship and Rosberg sixth.
The 2013 season marked the first year of BlackBerry's title sponsorship of the team. The silver and black livery carried BlackBerry branding, with Primax co-branding appearing on the sidepods for the Malaysian Grand Prix.
One W04 chassis — the car in which Hamilton won in Hungary, chassis number four — was sold at RM Sotheby's auction in Las Vegas in November 2023 for US$18.8 million, making it the second most expensive Formula One car ever sold at auction to that date, behind only the 1954 Mercedes W196. In December 2024, Hamilton drove the W04 at Silverstone as part of a farewell tribute marking the end of his tenure at Mercedes, bringing to a close the most successful driver-and-team partnership in Formula One history.
The W04 is remembered primarily as the car that confirmed Mercedes' technical potential while simultaneously exposing the tyre management weaknesses that would need to be addressed before the team could become genuine championship contenders. The lessons drawn from 2013 directly shaped the development approach of the W05, which launched the era of Mercedes dominance beginning in 2014. From that platform, Hamilton and Rosberg would go on to win six consecutive Drivers' Championships between them, and Mercedes would secure seven consecutive Constructors' titles.