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Mercedes-Benz takes over Brawn GP

(China Daily/AP)
Updated: 2009-11-18 09:43

FRANKFURT: Mercedes-Benz is taking over champion team Brawn GP to return to Formula One racing under its own name for the first time in 55 years.

At the same time, Mercedes plans to sell its stake in McLaren, although a partnership with the British team since the mid-1990s will continue with it supplying engines until 2015.

While some leading carmakers have pulled out of the sport at the time of the economic downturn, such as Honda, Toyota and BMW, Mercedes was looking to enhance its brand name.

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"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," said Dieter Zetsche, the CEO of parent company Daimler AG.

"We will face the competition in the future on the most important motor sports stage with our own Silver Arrow works team. Our new Silver Arrow F1 team is a great sporting and technical challenge and we will tackle this with sporting spirit and full of enthusiasm," Zetsche said during a conference call on Monday at which he announced the move.

Mercedes raced under its own name, with drivers such as Juan Manuel Fangio spreading the fame of the Silver Arrows, until one of its cars plunged into the crowd at Le Mans and killed more than 80 people in 1955, causing Mercedes to pull out. It returned in the early 1990s and then formed its partnership with McLaren in 1995, becoming the second most successful F1 team after Ferrari.