Mercedes-Benz Classic has published its second motorsport newsletter of 2026, folding a series of racing anniversaries into the brand’s “140 Years of Innovation” year. The list runs from Alfred Neubauer’s debut as team manager a century ago to Nico Rosberg’s Formula 1 title ten years back. It also marks milestone birthdays for Jochen Mass, Emerson Fittipaldi and Andrew Cowan.
Mercedes-Benz Classic issued the newsletter from Stuttgart on 25 August 2026. Rather than new-car news, it gathers dates from the company archive, and the span is wide: a pre-war team manager, two DTM landmarks, a European rally title from the 1950s and the last drivers’ championship the works Formula 1 team won with a German driver.
The man who invented the pit board
On 12 September 1926, at the Solitude race near Stuttgart, engineer Alfred Neubauer appeared for the first time in the role of Mercedes-Benz racing manager — and refused to give up his position at the trackside despite protests from the organisers. In the account carried by the archive he explained his presence in a line that has followed him ever since (translated from the German original):
I am the racing manager of the Mercedes team. I have to stand here in order to be able to give signals to my people.
Neubauer ran the brand’s racing programme from 1926 to 1955, across three distinct eras: the supercharged S-series touring cars, the first Silver Arrow period of 1934 to 1939, and the post-war return between 1952 and 1955. The company credits him with developing the system of flags and boards used to communicate between pit and driver. Born in 1891 in Neutitschein in Moravia, now in the Czech Republic, he trained as an automobile officer in the Austrian army and joined Ferdinand Porsche at Austro-Daimler, moving with him to Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft in Stuttgart in 1923. His memoirs, published in 1958 and 1959, were translated into several languages.
Two DTM landmarks
Bernd Mayländer is best known outside motorsport circles as the driver of the Official FIA Formula 1 safety car, a role he has held since 2000 and which has taken him past 500 outings — more starts than any current F1 driver. Mercedes-AMG has supplied the safety car for 30 years. Mayländer also raced in the DTM until 2004, and on 7 October 2001 he won the season finale at Hockenheim in a Mercedes-Benz CLK-DTM. It was the last race on the old 6.823 km (4.24-mile) layout with its long forest straights, so his touring car lap record of 2:07.288 stands permanently.
That 2001 season was the second under the regulations introduced when the DTM returned in 2000, after a cost-driven break from 1997 to 1999. “The idea of reviving the DTM was always present,” former Mercedes-Benz motorsport director Norbert Haug says in the newsletter, recalling the talks he and AMG founder Hans Werner Aufrecht held with manufacturers and sponsors (quote translated from the German). The formula — a four-litre V8 plus a common-parts concept to contain costs — survived in its essentials until 2020.
Five years later, on 15 October 2006, Bernd Schneider took a record fifth DTM title, a fifth place at Le Mans being enough to settle it. Born in 1964, he had won the series in 1995, 2000, 2001 and 2003. He first tested for Mercedes-Benz in 1991 and signed a three-year works contract with Mercedes-AMG for 1992, leaving the DTM at the end of 2008 after 226 races and 43 wins for the brand. In 2013 he won all the major GT endurance races with the SLS AMG GT3, and he now works as a Mercedes-AMG brand ambassador, instructor and test driver.
A European rally title after the works team withdrew
The 1956 season came directly after Mercedes-Benz pulled out of racing at the peak of its success — 1955 had brought Juan Manuel Fangio his second consecutive Formula 1 title with the brand as well as the sportscar world championship. Even so, Stuttgart pair Walter Schock and Rolf Moll took the 1956 European Rally Championship, contested over thirteen events, with substantial help from a small group around racing manager Karl Kling; the cars were prepared by the factory.
The season opened in January with the Monte Carlo Rally, where the crew chose the 220 a “Ponton” saloon (W 180) for its ground clearance on the snow-covered stages and finished second. For the rest of the year they used the 300 SL Gullwing (W 198), winning the Sestriere and Acropolis rallies.
Rosberg’s title, ten years on
The 2016 championship went to the final round in Abu Dhabi on 27 November with Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton tied on nine wins each. Hamilton won the race; Rosberg, leading on points, needed only second, and secured it with a bold pass on Max Verstappen’s Red Bull. The Mercedes GP PETRONAS F1 Team finished the year with 19 wins from 21 Grands Prix. Rosberg retired from racing immediately afterwards. Hamilton went on to add titles in 2017 to 2020 to those from 2014 and 2015, having taken his first with McLaren-Mercedes in 2008. The newsletter notes that team-mates Kimi Antonelli and George Russell are among the 2026 title contenders.
Birthdays
Jochen Mass would have turned 80 on 30 September; born in Dorfen in 1946, the long-serving Formula 1 driver took his biggest win in the 1989 Le Mans 24 Hours with Manuel Reuter and Stanley Dickens in the Sauber-Mercedes C 9. He retired from racing at the end of 1991 and died on 4 May 2025.
Emerson Fittipaldi turns 80 on 12 December. The Brazilian won the Formula 1 championship in 1972 and 1974 and the Indianapolis 500 in 1989 and 1993; from 1994 his Penske ran Mercedes-Benz engines, and that year he was heading for a third Indy win with the 500 I unit before crashing out near the end. He retired in 1996.
Andrew Cowan would have been 90 on 13 December. Born in Duns, Scotland, the marathon rally specialist won the 1977 London–Sydney event in a Mercedes-Benz 280 E (W 123) — a 30,000 km (roughly 18,600-mile) run from 12 August to 28 September through Europe, Asia and Singapore. He died on 15 October 2019.
What it means
The newsletter is part of the anniversary programme Mercedes-Benz is running through 2026, marking 140 years since Carl Benz filed the patent for the first automobile. Alongside the archive material, the company has sent three new S-Class saloons on a “140 Years. 140 Places” tour across six continents, which runs until October.
Further material is available through the Mercedes-Benz archive and the company’s media site.
Source: media.mercedes-benz.com