How a 128-day Mercedes miracle crushed its opposition

A cursory look at the standings three rounds into the inaugural FIA GT Championship would give little indication of what was to come over the remainder of the 1997 season. An 18-point advantage for Schnitzer McLaren-BMW drivers JJ Lehto and Steve Soper over Mercedes CLK-GTR pairing Bernd Schneider and Alex Wurz didn’t tell the true story either.

The new Mercedes run by the works AMG operation was clearly the quicker car and, once its teething troubles were ironed out for round four at the Nurburgring, it would be beaten only twice more that year. By the time it was replaced by the CLK-LM for the third round of the 1998 campaign, it had earned eight wins including five 1-2 finishes (from 13 attempts), eight pole positions (including four top-three lockouts) and truly moved the goalposts in GT racing. Not bad for a car that was conceived, built and given its race debut within the space of 128 days.

“The biggest surprise was that we got the car in the good way in that short time,” says 1997 champion Schneider.

The CLK-GTR’s brief lead time was the result of Mercedes motorsport boss Norbert Haug being caught on the hop by the collapse of the International Touring Car Championship for the highly complex (and expensive) Class 1 machinery. When Opel and Alfa Romeo both announced their withdrawal at Mugello in late September 1996, Haug faced a dawning realisation that “we had no activity for the year after”.

Feeling it was important to retain a motorsport presence outside its Formula 1 engine supply deal with McLaren to bolster the image of sporting Mercedes cars, Haug began to explore an entry into the new-for-1997 FIA championship that had effectively annexed the Global Endurance GT Series. AMG technical director Gerhard Ungar was tasked with leading the project, but time was a precious commodity with the new season due to kick off in April at Hockenheim.

“You cannot take the world upside down in 128 days, this is not possible,” states Haug, who credits HWA boss Hans Werner Aufrecht for taking on the risk of producing the required 25 road-going models, without which the programme “would not have been possible at all”.

The V12 engine and gearbox in the CLK-GTR were bedded in with a McLaren F1 GTR

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How much its finely honed technical insights from the ITC aided the new GT project is difficult to determine, given the machines bore little resemblance, with stripped back control systems and limited driver aids. But AMG’s pedigree was not in doubt. It had been a winner against four-wheel-drive opposition in 1996 with the rear-drive C-Class, although lost out on the title to Opel. And its preparations were astute too.

A McLaren F1 GTR, which had won the previous two Global GT titles with David Price Racing and GTC Competition, was acquired and converted into a test hack for Mercedes’ six-litre V12 engine and gearbox. It spent four days testing at Jarama, which Schneider reckons “was the reason we were from the gearbox and engine side pretty well prepared”.

“We had put in different types of rear wing mounts and all sorts of things to that car to make the engine fit,” remembers AMG engineer Owen Hayes, who ran Alessandro Nannini and Marcel Tiemann in 1997. “But when working on that car, you were going, ‘It’s nice, but it’s not the way you would really do a no-compromise race car’. It was still a road car made into a race car.”

"Our biggest problem with that car was already the bouncing in the front" Bernd Schneider

A potential stumbling block was the requirement to homologate the road-going CLK-GTR pre-season. But this rule was changed for 1997, allowing Mercedes to enter what was a purpose-built racer without facing the same hurdles of its disgruntled chief rivals, and focus attention on optimising a car that could take on McLaren’s revised long-tail GTR and Porsche’s factory-entered 911 GT1 Evo.

“We made the promise in writing that we would build a [road] car, but it was short-notice,” Haug asserts.

He maintains that Mercedes had no “special treatment” from the organisers, and it is true that the Reynard-built Panoz was also a beneficiary. But paddock rumour that the first photographed example of the road-going CLK was actually a mocked up race chassis is confirmed by Hayes.

“We got the first test/race car and we put registration plates on with double-sided sticky-tape,” he chuckles. “We changed the wheels to road-car wheels and took photographs of that car in the workshop with road-car wheels on, then took the plates off again and prepared the car for testing.”

This got off to an inauspicious start with the rollout at Jerez. On Schneider’s first flying lap, as he braked at the end of the start/finish straight, “the front wishbones came out of the chassis” to give the driver a heart-in-mouth moment and delay testing by a day.

Schneider suffered a fright in testing, but was quickly enamoured with the new car

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“The guys who made the carbon fibre monocoque made a mistake,” he recalls. “The pick-ups went out and the car went on the floor. I just went into the run-off and stopped right in front of the barriers. I was a bit scared! Then we put some plates behind the pick-ups inside the monocoque and it was really stable, we never had an issue again.”

Once the fixes were initiated, Schneider was quickly impressed with the CLK-GTR’s downforce, which was “another big step compared to the McLaren”. Also singling out the V12’s torque for praise, Schneider found the car was “suited perfectly” to his driving style. But its chief flaw was quickly apparent too.

“Our biggest problem with that car was already the bouncing in the front,” he says. “This was also a big issue when we came to Hockenheim for the first test, when we went first time over 300km/h, to get the bounce under control. Nannini came out of the car and said he can’t drive, and Gerhard Ungar said, ‘Schneider, go in the car and drive.’ And I couldn’t see the first corner!”

Schneider admits that it took Mercedes “a little while to understand” its porpoising struggles, which persisted after making some changes in the wind tunnel.

“The only downforce in the front you can get is from the front splitter,” he explains. “This was a little issue if you have a V12 at the back, the rear is quite heavy and stable – how do you get front-end grip? The secret is driving very low and this is what we did. For my driving style, it was really good to have a stable back and I could turn the car with the torque. This was like my secret in that year, I was used to it from the 962 Porsche.”

In low-downforce trim at Hockenheim, it was immediately clearly superior to the opposition. Without any incentive to withhold the true extent of its advantage in this pre-Balance of Performance age, Schneider took pole by 0.741 seconds. Although his race was ended prematurely by a freak brake problem, and the sister car was halted by a starter motor issue, notice had been served.

While Hayes admits that with hindsight he’s surprised that Mercedes was willing to show its hand early and blow the opposition away in qualifying, he maintains “there was no question that the car was going to be better”. He reckons the CLK-GTR “was just light years ahead” of the opposition in 1997.

Hayes (right, with Sandro Nannini) reckons it was no surprise that the Merc had the edge over the opposition

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“You could see that this was going to be a proper racing car,” he declares. “It was simple, but fantastically executed. Just look at the suspension on it. We had these Penske four-way dampers, it was really nicely done. The splitter was huge and the rear wing was as well, with a very efficient bodywork.”

Second at Silverstone in mixed conditions for Schneider and Wurz could have been a maiden win without an ill-timed red flag, and after an incident-plagued Helsinki the breakthrough win arrived at the Nurburgring, where Schneider was joined by Klaus Ludwig – Wurz was unavailable on Benetton F1 duty. The Austrian was back in the car for Spa, where only a superb drive in the wet from Lehto limited the Mercedes to second.

Collaborating with McLaren in F1 one weekend, then racing against it in FIA GT meant more than a few awkward moments for Haug, who acknowledges that “not everyone was happy in the McLaren camp”.

"It doesn’t matter which car, I was dominating, and this was the most important thing" Bernd Schneider

“I’m sure that they thought they could beat us,” he mulls, before adding: “We had the better engine.”

At both the A1-Ring and Suzuka, Schneider jumped into another Mercedes to rack up maximum points after his own car was hampered by alternator and suspension problems respectively. The ploy proved enormously helpful to his title credentials before Mercedes agreed to a rule change that would ban the tactic.

Justifying the decision was simple for Haug. “We were sportsmen,” he offers. For his part, Schneider admits that for sprint races he “was really surprised that this was allowed” in the first place.

Still, at Donington he and Wurz won despite failed power steering, and looked set to win again at Mugello until he was blamelessly embroiled in somebody else’s accident. Lehto and Soper profited after overcoming Nannini and Tiemann. But a storming wet-weather win at Sebring for Schneider and Ludwig as a fire thwarted the Schnitzer McLaren turned the tables again and, even after being split to double their chances at Laguna Seca, neither Soper nor Lehto were ever in the hunt as Schneider sealed the title by romping to victory with Ludwig once more.

Schneider won the title despite losing a likely win at Mugello, after Mercedes had agreed to end its car-swapping tactics

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With the passage of time, the significance of car-swapping has faded for Schneider.

“I don’t care about it,” he says. “It doesn’t matter which car, I was dominating, and this was the most important thing. Even if I would have lost the championship, I was the guy to beat.”

His run to the 1997 FIA GT title was achieved after Mercedes skipped the non-championship Le Mans 24 Hours, a decision Hayes believes was “critical” to getting the CLK-GTR competitive. Taking in the non-championship round and the necessity of building up a bespoke test team, test car and aero package “would have swamped us”.

“If we would have done on top Le Mans, it would have been a nightmare,” agrees Schneider, “because we have to do 30-hour tests and all these things. The mechanics were already at the limit, I think it was the right decision.”

Le Mans also wasn’t feasible in 1997 because “it was not in the budget”, Haug reveals.

At the end of 1997, BMW withdrew its funding of the McLaren programme and switched its attentions to a Le Mans prototype effort with Williams, while Lotus also canned its low-budget effort, leaving reduced opposition for Mercedes in the 1998 FIA GT Championship. Its new CLK-LM was 50kg lighter, featured a punchy V8 engine that was “a massive step ahead as regards just the whole integration of packaging” according to Hayes, and also benefited from improved weight distribution. Schneider was “really confident that this will be the car to beat” and was proven correct when it romped to eight wins on the trot.

But first the CLK-GTR had to be pressed into service for the opening two rounds, where it would go up against a new Porsche that was expected to be a big improvement.

“We were not surprised that Porsche was stronger than we were, especially in qualifying,” recalls Schneider.

Schneider, pictured at Sebring in 1997, believed the decision to skip Le Mans that year was key in securing the FIA GT crown

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But the CLK-GTR remained strong in race conditions and won on both its final two outings in the hands of the works squad. At Oschersleben, Ludwig and Ricardo Zonta beat the Persson Motorsport CLK-GTR of Tiemann and Jean-Marc Gounon – which Haug says was the same spec as the works while it waited for the new machines since “technically it’s just not possible to have big differences”.

Then at Silverstone, where Porsche’s Allan McNish led until engine failure and Uwe Alzen was delayed by a penalty for clashing with David Brabham’s Panoz, Schneider and Mark Webber came through for the CLK-GTR’s final win. It would continue for the remainder of the campaign with Persson, but never scored another podium as Panoz picked up the scraps left by the works Mercedes and Porsche teams.

“We always said qualifying will be hard for us, but we had very strong race pace and we never gave up,” opines Schneider. “Of course, we were a bit lucky to win at Silverstone, but on the other hand the CLK was still strong over the distance.”

"Although the car was very simple, it was very effective" Owen Hayes

Schneider, Haug and Hayes are all in agreement that, despite the CLK-LM’s early bath at Le Mans in 1998, Mercedes would not have been better served by taking the proven CLK-GTR instead. Not least because, as Schneider points out, the CLK-GTR never completed a 24-hour test.

“Of course, we know that the CLK [GTR] could do the mileage, but if you do it in one go it’s something different,” he says. “With the CLK-LM we did two 36-hour tests and the car was much stronger than the GTR over a long distance.

“The problem with the engine we had, this was just a failure from a supplier. It was not technical or a failure from a construction side. This also could happen to the V12.

“On top we have to say the CLK-GTR was really sensitive at the front with taking off. The experience we had in 1999 [when Mark Webber and Peter Dumbreck suffered aerial accidents at Le Mans] – that car [the CLR] felt so much better than the CLK-GTR. Not in terms of driveability, just faster and more settled to the ground and we had never an issue with the front [in testing]. So that means maybe this would happen already in 1997 [if the CLK-GTR had gone to Le Mans].”

Schneider and Webber won on the CLK-GTR's swansong as a factory-run racer at Silverstone in 1998

Photo by: Sutton Images

While the CLK-LM’s superiority is not in doubt, Schneider’s preference is for the CLK-GTR.

“It’s slower,” he admits, “but to drive, to make taxi rides… If you would sit next to me and we have the CLK-LM or GTR, you would enjoy more the GTR. The corner speeds it’s not maybe that good, especially the turn-in is not that fast because it’s heavier. But the torque and the sounds and the braking of that car was awesome.”

And Hayes adds: “Although the car was very simple, it was very effective.”

Given the time constraints, that was perhaps about all it could ever hope to be. But perhaps the true testament to the Mercedes CLK-GTR is the prized status of its road-legal models.

“They are today collector’s items, expensive like hell,” Haug laughs. “But it was not so easy to get them sold at this time!”

The road-going CLK-GTR is now a collectors item

Photo by: Mercedes AMG

The contribution of bespoke tyres

For then-Mercedes motorsport boss Norbert Haug, Bridgestone’s contribution to Mercedes’ 1997 FIA GT Championship success “was not the key factor”.

“We would have been competitive with Michelin as well, I’m sure,” Haug asserts.

But the fact that Mercedes was the sole team using Bridgestones, while Porsche and McLaren-BMW used Michelins, almost certainly bestowed an advantage. It was a factor in Mercedes’ qualifying edge, with Schneider attributing its special qualifying tyres to “at least 1.5-2s” depending on the track surface grip.

On balance, however, Schneider believes “over the full season they were pretty equal”. That’s despite extensive work to find improvements, including a 3000km three-day test after the A1-Ring round, and Schneider doing the bulk of tyre testing, which he concedes “was a big difference to my colleagues”.

"If they feel they are not good enough, they are really pushing like hell and they do everything to get better" Bernd Schneider

Michelin’s strong suit, according to Schneider, lay in high-speed corners where the Bridgestones “were always a bit suffering with top speed because the flanks are a bit softer and this makes the car a bit harder to roll”. But for Schneider “the Bridgestone was really good because there was a little bit more grip”, needed to compensate for the extra weight of the CLK-GTR’s V12.

Its wet tyres became a huge asset after the car was defeated at Spa, when Schneider recalls that the tyre performance “was really disappointing”. They were significantly improved when called upon at Sebring.

“There the competitors were already laughing because it was raining,” chuckles Schneider. “But we’d got something special in the pocket and the Bridgestone rain tyre was definitely better than the Michelins at Sebring. The Japanese company, if they feel they are not good enough, they are really pushing like hell and they do everything to get better.”

Engineer Owen Hayes says the Bridgestone wet “was just such a strong suit”.

“It was mindblowing what they could do,” he says. “This was Bridgestone saying, ‘We’re going to dominate this’. It was incredible. What was in it? No idea!”

The CLK-GTR was strong in qualifying trim with its unique Bridgestone rubber, and by season's end was the car to beat in the wet

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