diff --git a/.release-please-manifest.json b/.release-please-manifest.json
index 64e0684f..099626f4 100644
--- a/.release-please-manifest.json
+++ b/.release-please-manifest.json
@@ -1,3 +1,3 @@
 {
-  ".": "1.7.0"
+  ".": "1.8.0"
 }
diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 1f8e77dd..f6b9d9ad 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -1,5 +1,12 @@
 # Changelog
 
+## [1.8.0](https://github.com/runpod/flash/compare/v1.7.0...v1.8.0) (2026-03-09)
+
+
+### Features
+
+* Python version-aware Docker image selection ([#261](https://github.com/runpod/flash/issues/261)) ([e10c18e](https://github.com/runpod/flash/commit/e10c18e7f2ec9b245e6c69e12dcbc68ec32d510e))
+
 ## [1.7.0](https://github.com/runpod/flash/compare/v1.6.1...v1.7.0) (2026-03-05)
 
 
diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index 936360b6..0a13fa39 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 [project]
 name = "runpod-flash"
-version = "1.7.0"
+version = "1.8.0"
 description = "A Python library for distributed inference and serving of machine learning models"
 authors = [
     { name = "Runpod", email = "engineer@runpod.io" },
diff --git a/src/runpod_flash/__init__.py b/src/runpod_flash/__init__.py
index 6158b7b7..70a55c0d 100644
--- a/src/runpod_flash/__init__.py
+++ b/src/runpod_flash/__init__.py
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-__version__ = "1.7.0"  # x-release-please-version
+__version__ = "1.8.0"  # x-release-please-version
 
 # Load .env vars from file before everything else
 from dotenv import load_dotenv