The Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport team will line up on the grid for the new Formula One season with a brand new livery which features a special new green colour created by Spies Hecker.

The responsibility for the new PETRONAS green applied to the Mercedes-AMG F1 W10 EQ Power+ fell to Andrew Moody, Head of Paint and Graphics for Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, at the team’s Paint Shop in Brackley. He knew exactly what was needed so started discussions early with a team from Official Team Supplier Axalta, the company behind the Spies Hecker brand.

Andrew said, “The green we had been using didn’t always have the same impact on TV as it did in real life. We wanted a PETRONAS green to pop from every camera angle, even from the roving helicopter shots at races, and look as good on a sunny day as it would in the rain. We also wanted the speed of application, reliability and durability we have come to know and to trust over the last five years from Permahyd Hi-TEC 480 Basecoat.”

At the beginning of November, the final colour was chosen from an original pool of nearly 30 samples. A luxurious, dynamic, stunning pearl green, created with the clear-over-base system, really captured the imagination of everyone on the development team and perfectly met the brief to look great on the track and on screen.

For the 2019 livery’s striking colour gradients there’s the main Permahyd Hi-TEC 480 Basecoat silver - called Stirling Silver, plus four additional silver tones, graded one to four, moving into black. Stirling Silver also coats the cars’ halo for the first time. The new green, whose formula is highly confidential and not commercially available, features in a bold glow line. Two concentrations of the PETRONAS green sandwich a bright, white-centred glow line that runs the entire length of the car, starting on the front wing, and ending on the rear wing. This year also sees the addition of over 1,000 painted Mercedes-Benz stars on the chassis and engine cover in numerous different sizes and in two different silver tones. None of the colours on the car are commercially available.

Andrew comments, “The time between race weekends doesn’t get longer, so no matter how complicated or complex the livery is, we rely on Spies Hecker to deliver.” He added, “We have just started using the Permasolid HS Race Clear 8700. It’s fast and reliable, just like all the Spies Hecker products, and its low viscosity means it is easy to work with.” In addition to this new clear and Permahyd Hi-TEC Basecoat 480, the Paint Shop uses a variety of Spies Hecker products, including Priomat® Wash Primer 4075, then either Permasolid® HS Vario Primer Surfacer 5340, a high solids primer surfacer, or Permasolid® HS Performance Surfacer 5320, a fast drying 2K HS sanding surfacer.