Mercedes-Benz withdraws from motor racing at the end of the 1955 season

Daimler-Benz and Motor-Racing

Back in the summer the Daimler-Benz factory announced that they were withdrawing from Grand Prix racing at the end of the 1955 season and would continue with sports-car racing. The reason for this was that it needed all the brains and technical skill in the factory to carry out the very full 1955 programme of Grand Prix and sports-car racing, and this had curtailed development work on the normal production cars and engines produced by Daimler-Benz. When one has seen the thorough way in which the Daimler-Benz engineers tackle the problem of motor-racing and racing-car design it is understandable that 500 people were engaged on the project.

That the brief re-entry into racing by the Mercedes-Benz team was successful in the extreme can be seen by the record of their successes since July, 1954, when they made their first appearance in the new Formula 1 with their highly complex W196 car. From July, 1954, to September, 1955, they competed in 13 championship Grand Prix races and won 10 of them, on two occasions they were beaten, finishing fourth at Silverstone and third at Barcelona, in 1954, while the third race they did not win was the Monaco Grand Prix this year, when all three cars retired with engine trouble, the only serious mechanical failure that ever affected the whole team. The record of their 300SLR sports car is equally impressive, being first and second in the Mille Miglia, Tourist Trophy, Targa Florio, Eifelrennen and Swedish Grand Prix, and only failing to win at Le Mans, where the cars were withdrawn for reasons of manufacturer policy. In addition to these successes the 300SL models won the Tulip Rally and the Liége-Rome-Liége Rally among many others and netted the Touring Car Championship for the year, so it was not surprising that Daimler-Benz had a celebration at Stuttgart, for all those drivers who had been successful with their cars.

It was at this re-union that Dr. Nallinger, the head of the racing department, announced that Daimler-Benz were withdrawing from sports-car racing as well as Grand Prix racing. To many people this was difficult to understand, but when it is realised that Daimler-Benz tackle motor-racing as a technical exercise for their engineering abilities and not for sport, it can be appreciated that they could quite easily say “We will now direct our technical organisation towards another mechanical problem.”

The French, the Italians and the English, for that matter, go motor-racing because they enjoy the sport of competition and they have a love for fast cars and if they could race without the technical background required to build a racing car they would happily do so, but Daimler-Benz have a different outlook, their real interest lies in the project of motor-racing as a technical problem. They have solved that technical problem with almost 100 per cent. success in 18 months, so it really is not very surprising that they have written out their findings, drawn up the conclusions and closed the folio headed “For the attention of the technical department — Subject: motor racing” and opened the next folio headed “Passenger-car development.”

If Maserati or Ferrari were to stop racing their whole beings would stop, the technicians and mechanics would stand around idly wondering what they could do with themselves and that is one of the fundamental differences between Mercedes-Benz and the other racing teams. This attitude is not confined to the Stuttgart firm, but applies to any manufacturer of their size, for not long ago Alfa-Romeo withdrew their 159 models and have yet to re-appear in Grand Prix racing. Large concerns like these do not race for a living, a sport, or a way of life, but as an exercise of the most exacting kind for their technical and organising powers, and to prove to the world and themselves that the quality of their engineering is the best there is. That certain technical developments are passed on to the production cars, such as the Daimler-Benz fuel-ignition, are side-issues, such developments would arrive without racing, but Grand Prix racing must certainly speed-up the development. The real reason behind the participation of a large manufacturer must first and foremost be to show the world that that firm’s ability in engineering problems is of the highest possible order. If the organisation were to do what Daimler-Benz have done then they would create a name for their engineering prowess, which would not only convince the world that all branches of their engineering most be as good. but would automatically affect all their various engineering activities, instilling that same high standard that Grand Prix racing demands.

The complete withdrawal by Daimler-Benz is an unhappy thing for many of us, especially those interested in technical development, but, on the other hand, they had monopolised racing to such an extent that their withdrawal will at last allow someone else to win. — D. S. J