Facts
-
Generation
W203 (2006 DTM specification) -
Racing Series
German Touring Car Masters (DTM) -
Season
2006 -
Driver
Bernd Schneider -
Engine
4.0-litre naturally aspirated V8 -
Power
480 PS / 353 kW -
Achievements
2006 DTM Drivers’ Champion, 71 points -
Schneider’s race wins that season
Hockenheim and EuroSpeedway Lausitz
Two back-to-back wins at the start of the season, regular finishes in the points and, ultimately, a fifth title: driving a Vodafone AMG-Mercedes C-Class, Bernd Schneider elected to make the 2006 DTM his final championship-winning campaign. The car epitomises a phase of the German Touring Car Masters (DTM) in which silhouette racing cars with naturally aspirated V8 engines, carbon fibre technology and uncompromising aerodynamics were the norm.
In 2006, Bernd Schneider won his final championship in the last factory racing season of the AMG-Mercedes C-Class (W203). Just one year later, the next evolutionary stage followed in the form of the W204. The vehicle thus connects two consecutive chapters of a particularly successful era for Mercedes in the DTM.
The vehicle
The DTM race car shared little more than its silhouette with a standard C-Class. Beneath the bodywork lay a fully-fledged prototype: racing chassis, carbon fibre components, large aerodynamic surfaces and a high-revving four-litre V8, the air intake of which was restricted by the regulations.
480 PS / 353 kW and some 500 Newton-metres were the dimensions Mercedes worked with in this generation of the DTM. In 2006, a development freeze was also imposed on the DTM cars. Competitive advantage thus shifted heavily towards set-up, tyre management, strategy and flawless pit work. This was precisely where the strength of the well-developed HWA package lay.
The driver
Bernd Schneider went into the 2006 season as a four-time DTM champion. With victories in the first two races of the season, he immediately laid the foundations for yet another champion’s trophy and remained consistent enough thereafter to keep fellow Mercedes driver Bruno Spengler as well as the Audi rivals at bay. His final tally of 71 points was enough to secure his fifth and final DTM championship.
This fifth title cemented Schneider’s status as ‘Mister DTM’ once and for all. In 226 races with Mercedes-Benz touring cars, he won 43 times and finished on the podium 100 times.
Fun fact
In 2006, Schneider won just two of the ten races in the season – both right at the start. Championship runner-up Bruno Spengler won four times. The title went to Schneider nonetheless, because he scored points more consistently throughout the season. This is a good example of how a championship is not decided solely by the number of race wins.
The story behind the car
Mercedes had been fielding the 203-series C-Class in the DTM since 2004. For 2006, the basic technical package remained largely unchanged; at the same time, HWA had already begun developing the next-generation C-Class race car. Work on the successor began in March 2006, initially with a 1:2-scale wind tunnel model. The new W204 silhouette entered competition in 2007.
Schneider’s 2006 championship victory thus marked the sporting culmination of the W203 DTM generation. The championship title and the key technical specifications of this generation of cars are well documented by Mercedes-Benz and contemporary DTM sources. A chassis number for the car displayed at the Red Bull Ring Classics is not mentioned in the publicly available records; the presentation therefore focuses on the verified sporting history of the vehicle.