McLaren Mercedes F1 Team Unveils New Livery

Posted by www.eMercedesBenz.com on February 10, 2006 at 2:30 PM CST

Despite a relatively lackluster Friday for Mercedes news, the McLaren  
Mercedes F1 has just released details of what livery the team's new  
MP4-21's will be donning this year.

The new car features, as you can see in the photos, a predominantly  
chrome color scheme.  According to McLaren Marketing Managing  
Director Ekrem Sami:  "A lot of research and months of work have gone  
into creating this unique chrome finish.  We are always looking at  
innovative ways to allow our sponsor partners to differentiate their  
brands from the competition through their partnership with the team  
and this unique livery is designed to be extremely photogenic."

There you have it ladies and gentlemen.  It's shiny, looks damn fast,  
and due to its photogenic properties, recovering alcoholics around  
the world will constantly remember the good times they shared with  
Johnnie Walker and his Red Label.  Personally, I'm more of a cognac  
man myself, but let's keep that between you and me.

For more info, check out the full press release below and visit  
www.eMercedesBenz.com to see photos.


OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE


F1: Team McLaren Mercedes Unveils Unique Livery

Woking, Feb 10, 2006

The new livery has an innovative surface coating, which achieves a  
high level of reflectivity. The technology used was perfected by  
McLaren during the past six months and is completely new to Formula One.

"A lot of research and months of work have gone into creating this  
unique chrome finish," explained McLaren Marketing Managing Director  
Ekrem Sami. "We are always looking at innovative ways to allow our  
sponsor partners to differentiate their brands from the competition  
through their partnership with the team and this unique livery is  
designed to be extremely photogenic. Team McLaren Mercedes had the  
highest audited 'Share of TV Voice' in 2005 - and we hope that this  
new identity will contribute to us retaining that status."

"When we created our previous livery in the mid nineties we  
established what we believed then was an innovative and  
groundbreaking new identity for McLaren Mercedes," continued Sami.  
"What we have launched today is as revolutionary and we hope it will  
be the foundation of the team's livery for many years to come."

The team can look back on a lot of success during the nine years of  
the former livery. At the very first race after its introduction in  
Melbourne in 1997 the team won and since then it has taken nearly 30  
per cent of all Grands Prix victories.

The team took the opportunity to show the new livery to McLaren Group  
and Mercedes-Benz High Performance Engines employees this evening.  
Two of the Groups better known personalities, drivers Kimi Raikkonen  
and Juan Pablo Montoya, were both impressed with their cars' 'new  
clothes'.

"I have only seen illustrations of the new livery until now but they  
do it no justice," said Kimi. "It looks fantastic and should create a  
bit of a stir when we drive it on tracks around the world. If we can  
make the car as fast as it looks then we will be in good shape."

"Wow," said Juan Pablo. "What a beautiful looking car. I have  
obviously been testing the MP4- 21 quite a bit already but seeing the  
car like this is something else."


For more Mercedes-Benz news and information, visit  
www.eMercedesBenz.com.