Hi sirs good afternoon,
still have my "usual nonsense" to make cars almost BC, as a friend of mine says before inventing the wheel ....
Here the protagonist of the story Mr. Di Palma
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In the 1915 Indy 500, after four years of trying, it all came together for Mercedes and Ralph De Palma. The Mercedes De Palma drove already had a distinguished history before it turned a wheel at the Brickyard. In 1914, Mercedes had entered five cars as the factory team at the 1914 ACF Grand Prix held at Lyons, France, on July 14, 1914. To the astonishment of the French crowd and the then-dominant Peugeot team which had four-wheel braking systems as compared to the two-wheel system still being used by Mercedes, the Mercedes team bested the Peugeots and finished first, second and third, with the famous Mercedes driver Christian Lautenschlager leading the team to victory.
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Ralph De Palma was also in the 1914 ACF Grand Prix in an uncompetitive British Vauxhall and no doubt would have loved to have been one of Lautenschlager's teammates. As it turned out, in less than a year, he would get his wish, in a manner of speaking. The world was about to go
to war and the 1914 ACF Grand Prix was to be the last major race in Europe before the outbreak of World War I.
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In the 1915 Indy 500, De Palma ended up driving one of the Mercedes team's 1914 ACF cars, which had been exported from Europe after the ACF race and before the British blockade was imposed. De Palma in his cream-colored Mercedes and Dario Resta in a French blue Peugeot had a fierce struggle during the 1915 race, with the Peugeot faster on the straights and the Mercedes Grand Prix car-turned-oval-racer quicker through the turns. Fittingly, given his disastrous bad luck in the 1912 Indy 500, Ralph De Palma's 4.5 litre Mercedes outlasted Resta, managing to hold on to first place, although his Mercedes again broke a connecting rod, this time with only three laps left. This time, the Mercedes made it home, spewing oil as it crossed the finish line.
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After De Palma's win in the 1915 Indy 500 in what was effectively a 1914 Mercedes Grand Prix car, there was a brief hiatus where Mercedes had no connection to the Indy 500 until the 1923 Indy 500 when three members of the famous 1914 ACF Grand Prix Mercedes Team - Christian Lautenschlager, Christian Warner and Max Sailer - were reunited as a three-car factory team entered by Daimler Motoren Gesellshaft, with the cars being fitted with the first supercharged engines to be used to compete in the Indy 500. But lightning did not strike twice, as the Mercedes team had a so-so run at the 1923 Indy 500, finishing 8th, 11th and 23rd.
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After the indifferent performance of the Mercedes factory team in 1923, and despite its competitors in European road racing like Maserati and Alfa Romeo competing from time to time at Indy, Mercedes made only episodic appearances at the Indy 500, typically in the hands of private entrants, such as in 1924 and 1948
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my apologies .. has left me a bit long
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br
Jordi
still have my "usual nonsense" to make cars almost BC, as a friend of mine says before inventing the wheel ....
Here the protagonist of the story Mr. Di Palma
In the 1915 Indy 500, after four years of trying, it all came together for Mercedes and Ralph De Palma. The Mercedes De Palma drove already had a distinguished history before it turned a wheel at the Brickyard. In 1914, Mercedes had entered five cars as the factory team at the 1914 ACF Grand Prix held at Lyons, France, on July 14, 1914. To the astonishment of the French crowd and the then-dominant Peugeot team which had four-wheel braking systems as compared to the two-wheel system still being used by Mercedes, the Mercedes team bested the Peugeots and finished first, second and third, with the famous Mercedes driver Christian Lautenschlager leading the team to victory.
Ralph De Palma was also in the 1914 ACF Grand Prix in an uncompetitive British Vauxhall and no doubt would have loved to have been one of Lautenschlager's teammates. As it turned out, in less than a year, he would get his wish, in a manner of speaking. The world was about to go
to war and the 1914 ACF Grand Prix was to be the last major race in Europe before the outbreak of World War I.
In the 1915 Indy 500, De Palma ended up driving one of the Mercedes team's 1914 ACF cars, which had been exported from Europe after the ACF race and before the British blockade was imposed. De Palma in his cream-colored Mercedes and Dario Resta in a French blue Peugeot had a fierce struggle during the 1915 race, with the Peugeot faster on the straights and the Mercedes Grand Prix car-turned-oval-racer quicker through the turns. Fittingly, given his disastrous bad luck in the 1912 Indy 500, Ralph De Palma's 4.5 litre Mercedes outlasted Resta, managing to hold on to first place, although his Mercedes again broke a connecting rod, this time with only three laps left. This time, the Mercedes made it home, spewing oil as it crossed the finish line.
After De Palma's win in the 1915 Indy 500 in what was effectively a 1914 Mercedes Grand Prix car, there was a brief hiatus where Mercedes had no connection to the Indy 500 until the 1923 Indy 500 when three members of the famous 1914 ACF Grand Prix Mercedes Team - Christian Lautenschlager, Christian Warner and Max Sailer - were reunited as a three-car factory team entered by Daimler Motoren Gesellshaft, with the cars being fitted with the first supercharged engines to be used to compete in the Indy 500. But lightning did not strike twice, as the Mercedes team had a so-so run at the 1923 Indy 500, finishing 8th, 11th and 23rd.
After the indifferent performance of the Mercedes factory team in 1923, and despite its competitors in European road racing like Maserati and Alfa Romeo competing from time to time at Indy, Mercedes made only episodic appearances at the Indy 500, typically in the hands of private entrants, such as in 1924 and 1948
my apologies .. has left me a bit long
br
Jordi