Horse 1049 - Silver Arrows

http://www.brawngp.com/readstory.asp?bgp=j%C1%AA%C0rZ%7Cg

Mercedes-Benz will enter the Formula 1 World Championship with its own team, beginning with the 2010 season, and Daimler AG and McLaren Group will change their form of cooperation with effect as of 13 November 2009. This was announced by Daimler AG today.

http://media.daimler.com/dcmedia/0-921-657499-1-1253028-1-0-0-0-0-1-13472-614322-0-1-0-0-0-0-0.html?TS=1258409891618

Nobody wasted any time with this one. It seems as though the media people probably already have everything printed in lieu of the next international motor show. Ross Brawn must've known something and that's why he was cagey about his dealings with Richard Branson and his Virgin Group. As it is, it leaves Brawn GP as the most successful team in GP history, having secured the World Driver's Championship with Jensen Button and the World Constructors Championship for 2009, thus Brawn GP leave the sport being the only team in history with a 100% success record.

You can of course expect over the next few months images of Fangio and Moss though I suspect that they may want to sort of gloss over the events of the 1955 Le Mans 24 Hour Race when Pierre Levegh's Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR crashed and killed 84 spectators, and nor do I think that they'd show Mark Webber and Peter Dumbreck's mishaps in the 1999 Le Mans 24 Hour Race when they both flipped their Mercedes-Benz CLRs during the car's only competitive outing. Though the car which they'll most likely show will be 722, another Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR which Moss used to win the 1955 Mille Miglia and Targo Florio.




For me this is a trip down a Nostalgia Lane that had already been long demolished before I was even born. Mercedes had built some truly glorious Grand Prix cars in the 1930s but from 1955 until 1985 Mercedes-Benz' official involvement in motorsport was nil. It wasn't until 1995 that they returned to Formula One, and then they didn't really show their colours until 1996.

Speaking of that colour, the "Silberpfeile" or Silver Arrows, is a story which legend would suggest is pure accident and was the result of shaving off the paint from a Grand Prix car to make it comply with a weight limit. Whatever the case, both Audi and Mercedes-Benz both list Silberpfeil-Grau, or Silver Arrow Grey as a colour that they sell their road cars in, but as far as GP racing is concerned...

...the Silver Arrows are back.