Mercedes-Benz CLR

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The Mercedes-Benz CLR was a Le Mans Prototype GT Mercedes-Benz racing car created for the 1999 race. It became infamous for spectacular crashes.

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[edit] Racing history

In April 1999 Mercedes launched the new Mercedes CLR as successor to the FIA GT championship-winning Mercedes-Benz CLK-GTR and later CLK LM which would take part in the upcoming Le Mans 24 Hours. With tens of thousands of miles of testing on smooth race tracks, Mercedes felt that the car was quick enough to win the race, despite the short time spent on wind tunnel testing.

Three cars were entered, numbered 4, 5, and 6, each driven by a German, a French, and an English speaking pilot, to allow efficient international marketing. The major competition of Audi, BMW, Cadillac, Nissan and Toyota each entered two, three, or even four cars, making the 1999 LM one of the toughest ever. And there were smaller private teams like Panoz. Only Porsche, winner in the previous year, was missing.

However, Mark Webber's #4 car became airborne at the Indianapolis corner during the Thursday night qualifying session. The car was rebuilt from scratch on Friday, modified for more downforce at the front, and entered in the Saturday morning warm-up. This time, Mark Webber only made it to the Mulsanne kink when the car backflipped in spectacular fashion, this time caught in mid-air by photographers. Luckily, neither Webber nor anyone else was injured on either occasion.

Despite the second incident and the awareness of the 1955 Le Mans disaster, Norbert Haug decided to go ahead and enter the other two cars in the afternoon, with additional modifications and instructions to the drivers not to follow others cars closely over humps.

Still after over 4 hours, driven at the time by Peter Dumbreck, the #5 CLR chased a Toyota GT-One and became airborne two turns before Indianapolis, somersaulting and landing over the barriers into the trees, all on world-wide live TV. The crowd in the Le Mans grandstands was mortified, seeing the pictures on large screens without hearing any comment for a long time. No injuries were sustained in this incident. The race continued under yellow flag conditions. The #6 CLR, driven by Bernd Schneider, had immediately been retired.

[edit] Consequences

The flying Mercedes at Le Mans brought the almost immediate cancellation of the CLR project. Its planned participation in the Norisring event "200 Meilen von Nürnberg" was cancelled, as was participation in the ALMS series. Mercedes blamed the humps at Le Mans, which were lowered later. In similar incidents at Road Atlanta, the Porsche 911 GT1-98 of Yannick Dalmas had backflipped in 1998, and a BMW V12 LMR with Bill Auberlen did so on the same hump in 2000. Yet both these cars raced at Le Mans without incidents. Later on Mercedes claimed that a miscalculation during aerodynamic development had a role in the crashes as air was literally lifting the car off the ground from the underside.

The surviving #6 car was never raced again, and it is not shown at the Mercedes-Benz Museum. It seems to have been sold to a private collector. It was driven by Harald Grohs for a few laps in a 2001 event at Hockenheimring, and was since photographed in a showroom, parked under a cover (in the background).

[edit] Specifications

  • Mid-engine, rear-wheel drive, carbon fiber and aluminium honeycomb monocoque
  • Mercedes-Benz V8 (GT 108 C) engine, 5721 cc, about 600 hp (450 kW) output, electronically controlled ignition and injection system (Bosch Motronic)
  • X-Trac, unsynchronised, six-speed gearbox with magnesium casing
  • Front & Rear suspension: Double wishbones with push rod activation of the spring and shock absorber suspension units, attached directly to monocoque with pick-ups
  • 18" diameter undivided magnesium wheels
  • Bridgestone Potenza Tires
  • Length: 4893 mm (192.6 in)
  • Width: 1999 mm (78.7 in)
  • Height: 1012 mm (39.8 in)
  • Wheelbase: 2670 mm (105.1 in)
  • Weight: 921 kg (2030 lb)

2 of the 3 CLR cars were clocked at 349 km/h (217 mph) at Le Mans 1999 (the third at 348 km/h), which suggests a lower downforce setup of the car (as well as for its competitors in 1999) than those of the following years' prototypes, when the drivers' safety and car stability were increased in the detriment of top speeds, but not of the overall times (for comparison, the famous Audi R8, which won Le Mans 24 Hours 5 times, was clocked at 338 km/h (210 mph) on the Mulsanne Straight in 2002).

[edit] References