Silver Arrows have always been ahead of their competitors in the Premier Racing League. This tradition continues with the beginning of a new season of Formula 1 - Mercedes AMG pilot is a leader already in two rounds!
Silver Arrows have always been ahead of their competitors in the Premier Racing League. This tradition continues with the beginning of a new season of Formula 1 - Mercedes AMG pilot is a leader already in two rounds!
Tradition to dominate
The legend says that when Mercedes-Benz applied its race car for the race in the famous Nürburgring in 1934, the technical inspection rendered that its weight exceeded the maximum limit by one kilogram (limit at that time was 750 kg). The team manager Alfred Neubauer and pilot Manfred von Brauchitsch had a sudden idea, and a shiny silver-coloured car with all of its white paint being overnight removed from the aluminium bodywork appeared for a repeated inspection on the next day. Von Brauchitsch won the race, and the nickname "Silver Arrows" was born according to this version.
Almost the entire decade before the war when a victory was celebrated by either Mercedes-Benz or Auto Union, German race cars created an invincible force, and "red" Italians, "green" British, "blue" French and "yellow" Belgians only had to hope for an incidental luck.
A short but triumphal postwar entrance on the racing stage was made by Mercedes-Benz in 1954: the Argentinian star Huan Manuel Fangio became the Formula 1 champion and repeated his success also in 1955. Many more F1 victories most likely would be celebrated if not for a lethal crash in 1955 during Le Mans race where the French racer Pier Levegh died. Mercedes-Benz decided to leave motor sports.
Its absence lasted four decades until 1994 when Mercedes-Benz started to supply engines for the Sauber F1 team and in the subsequent year also to McLaren. Mercedes-Benz as a full-fledged F1 team entered the race in 2010. First four seasons turned out to be good but as it appeared later, they were only a prelude for the new triumph.
The crucial progress was reached in 2014. Based on new technical rules, bolides with hybrid equipment, the heart of which was a turbo engine of 1.6 litres entered the race. The engineer efforts gave immediate return, and the formulas piloted by Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg in 2014 and 2015 were simply invincible.
Technical progress
"The greatest challenge during the period between the seasons was to find a way to achieve even greater performance from already strong power device and chassis", said Toto Wolff, the Manager of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport, during the presentation of F1 W07 HYBRID 2016 model. "Changes in technical rules have been small therefore designing and development curve naturally becomes flatter. But it is a type of challenge that we like - to find the smallest performance reserve."
"Our priority after extremely successful last season was to identify the areas where we are weaker and look for improvements", added Paddy Lowe, the Technical Director of the team. "Several races did not take place as planned, for example, in Singapore so we improved many things. You could say that we are looking for optimising opportunities in every aspect."
Excellent pilots
The team with its full name being MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS Formula One Team in 2016 continues with an excellent duo of pilots. Triple F1 champion Lewis Hamilton (31) hopes to get the fourth title which would make him all-time most successful British pilot and at the same time would allow to take the honourable place among five all-time best F1 steersmen.
No doubt that Nico Rosberg (30), the colleague of Hamilton, being a member of Mercedes team since 2010 and taking 2nd place based on the total score in the previous two seasons, also harbours huge ambitions. He holds victories in Australian and Bahrain rounds.
21 rounds in nine months
Formula 1 has undergone many changes during its entire history and not only in technical terms. Racers in 1955 had to conquer only seven rounds while 21 rounds in 21 country will have to be completed in 2016. The last race will take place only on November 27 in Abu Dhabi. It means great challenge and, of course, an excellent show for the enthusiasts of racing worldwide!
