DIMO celebrates Mercedes’ historic sixth consecutive championship double

• Brings world champion experience to the road

It was a special season for Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport as the team wrote Formula One history by winning a sixth consecutive championship double – something no other team has done before in the 70-year-long history of the sport. 

In 2019, the team recorded 15 victories, 10 pole positions and 739 points.

To celebrate this remarkable and historic occasion, Diesel & Motor Engineering (DIMO) Plc, the only authorised general distributor for Mercedes-Benz in Sri Lanka, hosted the live screening of the final F1 race, the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, on 1 December. 

Members of the Mercedes-Benz Club of Sri Lanka and a few passionate racing enthusiasts and their spouses were invited to this live screening at Kingsbury Hotel, and were joined by the senior management of DIMO.

Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport led 696 of the 1,262 race laps that made up the 2019 F1 season. Including every pre-season and in-season test and all 21 race weekends, the team’s two cars racked up 7,813 laps of running – completing 382,789 gear changes and taking 128,791 corners in the process. The Mercedes-Benz Power Units completed 21,083 laps. Combined, the six Mercedes-Benz-powered cars scored 813 points, 15 wins, 32 podiums, 10 pole positions and 22 front-row starts.

DIMO Chairman and Managing Director Ranjith Pandithage said: “We are indeed proud to celebrate this historic achievement of Mercedes-Benz in Formula One. Winning six consecutive Constructors and six Consecutive Drivers Championships is an extremely difficult feat. During Ferrari’s most dominant era in F1, the Italian team won six constructors’ titles in a row between 1999 and 2004, while Schumacher, who was out of the majority of the 1999 season due to injury, took five titles from 2000 to 2004. It was a period of dominance that no one thought would be matched ever again, but Mercedes managed to surpass it. Competing in F1 requires competence and access to the most advanced driving technologies in the world, and Mercedes-Benz is the only luxury car manufacturer which has proven to have that level of technology.”

Hamilton won over half of the 21 races in 2019, claiming victory at 11 Grands Prix, and adding wins at Montreal and Hungary for the seventh time to his list of achievements in the process. His final tally of 413 points in the drivers’ standings, meanwhile, was the most ever recorded by a driver in a season in F1 history, while Hamilton’s career stats at the end of the year now stand at a dizzying 88 pole positions and 84 wins.

DIMO Mercedes-Benz Cluster General Manager Rajeev Pandithage said: “Formula One is the highest class of auto racing sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA). We at DIMO are proud to bring the world champion experience to the road. The obvious differences between the racetrack and an urban street could not be greater. Both environments require different approaches in engineering and innovation. Where performance is key in one world, safety is crucial in the other. At Mercedes-Benz, they know that their experience in both Formula One and road car production creates a unique environment benefitting the team at Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport as well as customers of our Mercedes-Benz road models. Mercedes-Benz vehicles from DIMO assure you a genuine Mercedes-Benz quality and cars made specifically for Sri Lanka.”

Everybody enjoyed the live screening of the exciting race at the Yas Marina circuit and cheered Lewis Hamilton all the way to the chequered flag. Both DIMO and Mercedes await an exciting 2020 season with more records in sight.