by Black is back, and in a big way. The Formula 1 season is shaping up to be a vintage year for eye-catching streaks. As the name of the MCL60 suggests, McLaren is celebrating its diamond anniversary this year. But the latest creation doesn’t pay homage to illustrious history by sporting a mostly papaya paint job. There is as much exposed carbon fiber weave as there is bright orange.
Mercedes has gone even further. The eight-time constructors’ champion will define this term with his resurgent winter powers to take the fight to Red Bull and Ferrari. The W13 needs to eliminate the excessive levels of drag and bounce that plagued the kit so much in 2022 after bringing back the original effects to F1. However, the main talking point immediately following Merc’s launch on Wednesday was the return of the ‘Black Arrows’.
The main reason for scrapping the synonymous money scheme is to save on the scales. Although the FIA has canceled a proposed 2kg reduction to the minimum car weight limit for 2023, teams are still a long way from comfortably reaching the 798kg threshold. As a result, the commercial and marketing department of each squad largely lost the argument to the engineers. Forget a scheme that boldly stands out on TV to appease sponsors, there can be zero excess fat.
So, Mercedes has ditched its synonymous silver and has now returned to the black palette that adorned its cars during the 2020 and 2021 seasons. Look closer and, although the surfaces above the calf and around the roll-over hoop and the intake is actually painted or wrapped, there is exposed carbon fiber around the sides.
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Mercedes Motorsport boss Toto Wolff said of the return to a mostly black Rhino: “We were overweight last year. This year we’ve tried to figure out where we can squeeze every gram out… You’ll see that there are some raw carbon bits in the car, as well as some bits that are painted matte black.”
Fortunately, though, the massive weight saving is a neat replica of a 90-year-old slice of Merc’s own racing history. According to the official W14 bumf, “the team took inspiration from the legendary creation of the original Silver Arrows” when removing the paint.
Mercedes has returned to its black humor on the new W14, reflecting its intention to save weight that inspired the original Silver Arrows
Photo by: Mercedes AMG
Apparently, the archives revealed that Mercedes unveiled its new W25 to Adolf Hitler in January 1934, with the supercharged machine in white – Germany’s national racing colour. But for the car’s competitive debut (delayed by a fuel issue at AVUS in late May) at the Nurburgring in June, all three W25s were over the new 750kg weight limit introduced for grand prix cars. 1000 grams.
That certainly led the venerable principal Alfred Neubauer and the driver Manfred von Brauchitsch to devise a plan to remove the lead-based paint from the lead-based paint in an attempt to get below the threshold. When von Brauchitsch won, the nickname ‘Silver Arrow’ was born – so the story goes, anyway.
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However, it is too much of a revisionist to take that story as gospel. Firstly, two months after the same W25 was presented to the Nazi government but, crucially, three months before its first bare-metal Eifel tour, Auto Union took the covers off its Type A. Technically, the machine was very impressive for its part. A 4.4-litre V16 sits behind the driver in a mid-engine configuration. But it also ran in exposed aluminum to give it a silver finish to begin with. Most importantly, the cars had the unpainted theme for the AVUS meeting which the Mercedes factory failed to start.
A tracker, it wasn’t. But with an AVUS top speed of 142mph, it was at least effective as he won the 1932 competition by overtaking the white Alfa Romeo of Rudolf Caracciola on the final lap.
There is another reason to be wary of the ‘Silver Arrow’ origin story. It first appeared in Neubauer’s 1958 memoir, ‘Speed Was My Life’. Prior to its publication, there was little public record of the paint stripping process in the period. Also, many believe that Neubauer was sometimes a little too happy to embellish his autobiography for the sake of a good story.
Furthermore, although it was good practice for the W25s to comply with the new weight regulations for 1934 which were designed to prevent larger engines causing speeds to increase at an alarming rate, the weight limit was not 750kg in place for the Nurburgring. Reportedly to strengthen the entry list and teams struggling to reach the goal and pass examination, the AVUS and Eifelrennen were run to the open rule book of Formula Libre. So, if not for good pre-emptive practice from Neubauer, the popular origin story for the ‘Silver Arrows’ nickname would at least be delayed.
But perhaps that most famous basis for the informal Mercedes moniker was already two years out of date, and there is a very good reason why von Brauchitsch was so central to the paint’s achievement in 1934. Since a source His clear inspiration.
The Mercedes W25 won the 1934 German GP with its stripped back paint job – but the ‘Silver Arrow’ moniker had been coined two years earlier
Photo by: Motorsport Images
Before the government funding of Auto Union and Mercedes, Germany was short of factory racing teams. So von Brauchitsch took the Mercedes SSKL (Super Sport Short (wheelbase) Light) owned by his cousin Hans von Zimmermann and teamed up with Neubauer. With the latter company’s cash, they developed a streamlined body to ensure that the car originally designed in 1927 could remain competitive.
The contemporary Mercedes cars were called ‘White Elephants’ because of the national racing color and their huge size to accommodate a 7000cc supercharged six-cylinder motor. But for the rebodied SSKL driven by von Brauchitsch, for its bulky but smooth body, it was labeled as the ‘gherkin’ or ‘cucumber’. A tracker, it wasn’t. But with an AVUS top speed of 142mph, it was at least effective as he won the 1932 competition overtaking the white Alfa Romeo of Rudolf Caracciola on the final lap.
It was reported that due to the critical build time for the SSKL, there was no ability to paint the car to be ready for the race. Therefore, it was competing in bare metal money. Thus, during the first ever race to be accompanied by a radio broadcast, Mercedes’ motorsport creation was referred to as the ‘Silver Arrow’, which is widely accepted as a first.
Some nine years later, the weight rather than the pre-season rush caused the W14 to run without paint in large parts this time. It also joins the W11 and W12s that sport a fully painted black livery in response to the killing of George Floyd and to promote the Black Lives Matter movement. If the stalwart believes that the W13 of 2022 was always destined to be a problem child, then this year’s contender will certainly be a welcome return to the black humor that won the team title today there.
Mercedes also claims that the W14 wears black to ‘echo the 1993 Sauber C12’. Although it housed a 3.5-litre V10 in Ilmor, the engine cover ran with the ‘Concept by Mercedes’ sticker due to the extended partnership between Merc and Sauber which had been successful in Group C sports cars. That the 2023 contender will return to the black 30 years later, it’s safe to assume it’s a happy retrofitting coincidence rather than an always-planned nod to the C12 – the painted car, rather than bare carbon, that steered Sauber to a 12-point start. season in F1.
Mercedes also claims that its W14 distortion is inspired by the look used by Sauber in 1993
Photo by: Ercole Colombo/Motorsport Images
