Mercedes gears up to run a special “red pig” livery this weekend to celebrate 55 years with AMG
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Mercedes Special "Red Pig" livery
The Belgian Grand Prix weekend has just gotten more interesting with the news of Mercedes slapping on a special livery on their F1 challengers. AMG is short for Aufecht, Melcher, and Großaspach, the division of Mercedes-Benz that produces performance vehicles. The livery is being termed as the “red pig”. It’s not the best of names but the livery itself is definitely awesome and one of a kind.
Mercedes is bringing the half and half retro/ modern livery to Spa for this weekend. The term “red pig”comes from the iconic Mercedes 300 SEL 6.8 AMG, which won the 1971 24 hours of Spa. With the Belgian GP happening this weekend along with the celebration of 55 years with AMG, the team saw this as a great opportunity to do something special. When fans heard about this, they weren’t exactly happy as we all know what happened the last time the German team brought out a special livery.
It was the 2019 German Grand Prix and Mercedes decided to go retro and bring a special livery to celebrate their 125th year of competing in Motorsport. They had also gotten a half and half retro/modern livery to the race weekend. Mercedes was also the title sponsor for their home race that weekend so it was all a cause for celebration for the team, until it wasn’t. Rain came in and absolutely crushed any chances for the team winning the grand prix and Valtteri Bottas crashed. Meanwhile Lewis Hamilton spun a few times and has an immensely long pit stop along with him having to serve a penalty. So basically it has never been a good weekend for the team whenever they have introduced a special livery.
The Mercedes one off half and half livery for the Belgian Grand Prix weekend
The 2022 rules and regulations threw Mercedes back into the midfield. If you would have told someone last year that a Mercedes would have been fighting with a Haas in the opening round of the season, they would have not believed you. The team has since been on a tight schedule to improve and bring updates in order to get back to the front of the grid where they have been for the past decade.
It will be interesting to see whether the team can break the special livery curse this weekend and bring in a good result with Lewis Hamilton and George Russell. With rain predicted for Saturday and Sunday, it seems like a throwback to the 2019 German Grand Prix where it all went wrong for the Brackley based constructor.
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Varad Joshi
(940 Articles Published)