Spies Hecker, one of the three premium refinish brands of Axalta Coating Systems has been responsible for the paint on the high-impact, instantly-recognizable liveries of the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport Silver Arrows race cars for three years, including the Championship-winning 2016 Mercedes F1 W07 Hybrid car. The Spies Hecker Hi-TEC Performance System is used on the race cars and provides the unique formulations developed for the current color scheme.

Axalta’s involvement in Formula One – the premier global racing discipline – is a key component of Axalta’s decades-long strategic motorsports partnerships in the U.S., Europe, Asia, and Latin America, which demonstrate the technology and durability of its coatings in high endurance racing environments.

“It takes about 150 hours to paint a race car, with the nose and rear wing each taking about 12 hours, so the speed of application and reliability is essential. We don’t have time to accept anything less than perfect and Spies Hecker delivers that for us,” says Andrew Moody, Head of Paint and Graphics, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport.

For the 2017 season, the livery of the 2017 Mercedes-AMG F1 W08 EQ Power+ car is striking. EQ stands for “Electric Intelligence” and is derived from the Mercedes-Benz brand values of “Emotion and Intelligence”. The new model designation has been translated graphically into the livery of the new W08, with an electric blue visual representation of the airflow that runs across the car from the front wing to trailing edge of the side-pods. These sleek, thin green and blue lines give an instant impression of speed and movement, even when the car is standing still. The design also relays the image of sparks flying over the speeding race car’s chassis, causing an almost electrified appearance. The effect on track is imposing.

The 2017 Mercedes-AMG F1 W08 EQ Power+ race car has 13 colors, none of which are commercially available: five shades of green, three shades of blue, four shades of graphite silver, and the main color, called Stirling Silver after Sir Stirling Moss who drove for Mercedes in 1955.