Refinish specialist Spies Hecker works closely with the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport team making sure its championship winning cars look stunning for every race. This work usually takes place at the paintshop at the team HQ in Brackley. However for a couple of key races the paintshop goes on tour.

The two chassis of the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport’s F1 W09 EQ Power+ race cars have a scheduled re-paint ahead of the United States Grand Prix in Austin, Texas, and the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in the United Arab Emirates so Andrew Moody, Head of Paint and Graphics sends four painters and everything they need to the race locations.

Everything from gloves, sanding paper, and spray guns, to all the Spies Hecker products and paint mixes are sent by sea freight at least two months in advance and the team sets up at a Mercedes-Benz approved bodyshop. They then spend several intense overnight shifts stripping back the car before priming and repainting using a complete Spies Hecker formulated system. This includes; 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. Permasolid HS Speed Clear Coat 8800 is used on parts that need to dry quickly, and for everything else, they use Permasolid HS Optimum Plus Clear Coat 8650.

For the striking colour gradients on the 2018 livery, there’s the main Permahyd Hi-TEC 480 Basecoat highly reflective silver colour plus four additional silver tones, graded one to four, moving into black. And there are three different greens and two different blues for the flow lines. All colours are exclusive and not commercially available.

Once the cars are sent to the circuit the painters head back to England to prepare for further races.