Why Did Mercedes Abandon Le Mans?

The Fact that Mercedes made a Racecar but still insisted to put a Hood Ornament on it is Incredible

Mark Webber must have the world record for most racing cars flipped during a professional career.

You overlooked the most interesting part. The team didn't believe Webber's claims until third flight was captured on camera and blamed Webber's bad driving. Mark Webber was livid and was ready to smash team's principals faces when the car lifted its nose for the third time.

Those homologated Mercedes racing cars looked SOOOOOOO GOOD tho !!! As a kid I was facinated by the "standard merceded grill" look in the middle surrounded by a bodybuilded race frame.

One thing you can't fault the CLRs for is driver protection. The fact that they Webber experienced what is essentially a plane crash, twice, and survived both times with basically no injuries is a credit to the cars' strength.

I just can't imagine a CLK-GTR as a road car. Parked it looked like it was going 100mph.

Mercedes: We need good top speed guys, so make an aerodynamic car. Engineers: Gotcha *Create an airplane wing with wheels* Mercedes: (._.)

Mercedes have a very poor track record of flying cars at Le Mans, obviously 1955 is the worst but in addition to this flight in '99, John Nielsen went up and over the Mulsanne Bosse at 220mph in the 1985 works backed Sauber.

Memories of Webber doing some flying in F1 as well. He probably should have considered a career as a pilot.

love that Mercedes is so ashamed of the CLR it seems that the car itself never made into any video games.

Good thing it flipped three times since cameras missed the first two.

Jeez that is crazy, could have ended badly, Webber is a lucky guy. Great video again mate!

Le Mans was advertised in 1999 as the greatest chariot race since Ben Hur. I am a BMW fan and supported McLaren at the time. But I was shocked when the Mercedes flipped over. Too bad, with the withdrawal of Mercedes, the biggest chariot race was over before it even started. Thank God nothing bad happened to the drivers. BTW: As far as I can remember, 2 McLarens burned down in quick succession.

Webber seemed to spend an inordinate amount of his career airborne and backwards. Top bloke. Should have at least one F1 championship, but for RB management bias

Oh man hearing those Gran Turismo 2 menu themes brings back memories

Wasn't there a rumor with the first airborne launch that Mercedes blamed Webber for it? Like the driver has a button to fly off into the crowd 🤣

And then Peter Dumbreck had his monster shunt at Zandvoort in DTM in the early 2000s after this too. He managed to get an early 2000s DTM car, which if you've ever seen one, is designed to go fast and grip the road...and made it flip as well. I'm not sure if Peter had a talent for getting race cars to flip at that point in time...but...two flips in five years in two wildly different car types...at two wildly differing circuits too. 1999 Le Mans: Merc tries to launch their third space flight of the weekend and fails. That shot of the merc in mid air above the bridge is burned into my brain. Zandvoort 2004: Dumbreck runs wide and launches his Opel into a spectacular flip at the last corner.

One things for sure is that this car is quite rigid, doesnt suffer too much body damage from 3 airborne crashes and the drivers each times it happen survived with minimal injuries, well except the 3rd one where it KOed the driver for a bit

Brilliant! Loving your work :)

1:55 when you realize that this battle is between McLaren and Mercedes, well remember that the two made the mythical SRL but neither of them was happy with each other, these images get much more interesting