page_title: Mercedes-Benz CLR
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Mercedes-Benz CLR / Background
caption_attribution_description: Alessandro Nannini Donnington 12/9/1997 Scanned from 35mm Canon EOS 100
context_page_description: The Mercedes-Benz CLR was a set of racing cars developed for Mercedes-Benz through a collaboration with in-house tuning division Mercedes-AMG and motorsports specialists HWA GmbH. Designed to meet Le Mans Grand Touring Prototype regulations, the CLRs were intended to compete in sports car events during 1999, most notably at the 24 Hours of Le Mans which Mercedes had last won in 1989. It was the third in a series of sports cars raced by Mercedes, following the CLK GTRs and CLK LMs that had debuted in 1997 and 1998 respectively. Like its predecessors the CLR retained elements of Mercedes-Benz's production cars, including a V8 engine loosely based on a design used in some models as well as bodywork based on the CLK and CL-Classes. The CLR's bodywork was lower in overall height than that used on the CLKs to produce less drag.
  Three CLRs were entered for Le Mans in 1999 after the team performed nearly 22,000 mi of testing. The cars suffered aerodynamic instabilities along the circuit's long high-speed straight sections. The car of Australian Mark Webber became airborne and crashed in qualifying, requiring it to be rebuilt.
context_section_description: In 1996 Mercedes-Benz's motorsports programmes included support for cars in Formula One, IndyCar, and the International Touring Car Championship (ITCC).  Following the collapse of the ITCC at the end of the 1996 season, Mercedes' attention shifted to a new international series, the FIA GT Championship.  Racing partners AMG were tasked with developing a design to meet the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile's GT1 regulations for the new championship.  The new cars, known as CLK GTRs, were designed for use both as racing and road cars available to the public, as series regulations required the racing cars to be based on production models.  The CLK GTRs were successful in their debut season, winning seven of eleven races and earning both the drivers' and teams' championships.
  For the 1998 season AMG refined the CLK GTR's design with the launch of the new CLK LM.  A major change for the new design was the replacement of the CLK GTR's V12 engine with a smaller V8, thought by Mercedes to be more suitable to take on longer endurance events such as the 24 Hours of Le Mans, a race not part of the FIA GT calendar.  Despite earning pole position for Le Mans, the new cars were unreliable and both lasted less than three hours before retiring from mechanical failures.  The race was won by Mercedes' FIA GT rivals Porsche.  Mercedes did go on to win its second straight FIA GT Championships later that year after winning all ten races.
  After the dominance of Mercedes, most of the GT1 class competitors chose to not return to the FIA GT Championship for 1999, leading the FIA to eliminate the category from the series.  The Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO), organisers of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, chose to follow the FIA's lead and no longer allow GT1 category cars to enter Le Mans.  While FIA GT concentrated solely on its lower GT2 category in 1999, the ACO created a new category of race car known as a Le Mans Grand Touring Prototype (LMGTP).  The LMGTP regulations for closed-cockpit cars were similar to the former GT1 regulations but shared many elements with the ACO's existing open-cockpit Le Mans Prototype (LMP) category.  Mercedes, no longer able to compete in the FIA GT Championship with the CLK LMs, chose to concentrate on the ACO's new LMGTP category.
caption: A CLK GTR competing in the FIA GT Championship
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