New Mercedes GP Petronas F1 Team Presented

Today, the new Silver Arrows Formula One works team MERCEDES GP PETRONAS was presented at the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart. Nico Rosberg and seven-time Formula One World Champion Michael Schumacher along with team management Ross Brawn, Nick Fry and Norbert Haug were introduced to guests with a presentation and press conference.

Over 600 guests, including 200 media representatives and 200 Mercedes-Benz employees, visited the Mercedes-Benz Museum, one of the biggest and most famous car museums in the world, to see the launch of the team and the unveiling of the new Silver Arrows livery. Mercedes-Benz employees from the company’s manufacturing plants in Untertürkheim and Sindelfingen, 100 of whom were invited for their outstanding performances and 100 selected through a popular internal draw, also had the opportunity to take their first look at the new MERCEDES GP PETRONAS team.

Brawn GP becomes Mercedes-Benz GP

Mercedes-Benz will become an independent constructor in Formula One for the first time since 1955 next season, after purchasing a controlling 75.1% share of the championship-winning Brawn GP team. The agreement was finalised on Friday and confirmed to the media today, and will see the team rebranded Mercedes Grand Prix, with its cars being run with the marque’s distinctive silver livery.

“Mercedes-Benz is the most valued and best-known premium automotive brand in the world. This brand looks for competition of the utmost quality in all relevant fields in order to continually improve its performance in the face of such new challenges”, explained Dieter Zetsche, CEO of Daimler AG and Head of Mercedes-Benz Cars.

Q & A with Martin Whitmarsh

Q. Is Ron Dennis’s announcement related in anyway to the events of the Australian and Malaysian Grands Prix?

Martin Whitmarsh: Ron has said that it is his decision and it is not related to an F1 issue. He has decided that it is time to move to a new challenge, and that is what he has done.

Q. Did he not do that when he handed over the team principal role to you?

MW: The first phase of that was to relinquish his role as team principal, but he was still CEO and he was still my boss at that time. So it was a further step of what he announced in March.