Former F1 driver Timo Glock has shared the extensive journey he went on to bring an iconic Michael Schumacher livery back to life at the Nurburgring 24 Hours.
Glock is competing in the race with Doerr Motorsport, driving a McLaren 720S alongside team-mates Timo Scheider, Ben Doerr and Marvin Kirchhöfer.
The livery was unveiled several weeks ago and has been created in cooperation with Bitburger, a German beer company.
It was a primary sponsor on Michael Schumacher’s championship-winning Benetton in 1994 and 1995, and as a result, it carries a special weight for all German drivers who were inspired by Schumacher.
“It’s just super emotional, I have to say,” Glock exclusively told ApexF1News at the Nurburgring.
“I was watching it as a kid, I know exactly where I was sitting at home at my parents’ house, where I watched Michael fighting for world championships in exactly that car.”
Glock revealed the project has been in the works for several months as it sought to bring back the iconic look to a race grid.
“To have it here, to have that project, it was a massive challenge,” he said. “We had the idea last year in December, with my long-term partner, which is Bembel With Care.
“They do the cider, which you need to taste, it’s very good! And they have a co-operation with Bitburger, and a very good friend of mine had this idea.
“He said ‘I know how we get Bitburger back into motorsport’, because they were out of motorsport more than 25 years.
“He came up with that idea to have the livery, but the main thing was they wanted to do it with a German brand, because that would have been a better connection for them.”
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However, the project did not come without its setbacks, and it seemed the partnership would not materialise after talks fell apart.
“Then suddenly, three weeks before the quali race, they pulled out, so the team had to pull out for reasons which are totally acceptable,” Glock said. “That’s how it is sometimes.”
But the 44-year-old was determined to see it through: “We had the chance to either stop it or to try to make it still happen, and I knew that my team was still trying to do the 24-hour race.
“They were planning it, so we came with the project and said, ‘listen, this is the chance to do it with you guys’.
“In the end, I think it’s a massive thing. Thanks to the team [that] they decided to do it, because it was all in a rush at the end.
“Things were not planned to do the six-hour quali race, because we were concentrating on DTM and stuff like this.
“So it was a massive task to get everything ready. The car got stickered on Monday, it got delivered here on Tuesday, and here we are.”
The livery has not gone unnoticed in the paddock as Glock revealed it has been praised by fans and drivers alike.
“When I did the presentation, like a couple of weeks ago at Sky Germany, after that, it was already a massive, massive social media hype on it.
“On our racing days, it was insane. Here, when you walk around with, I mean, with the team kits, with the overall in the same livery, the fans, everyone, even the drivers come up to me and say ‘man, this is awesome, this is mega, this puts me back like 25 years’.
“That’s awesome to see, it’s something to give back to Michael, who brought us to motorsport. He’s the man who, for me, is like Boris Becker in tennis or Boris Beckenbauer in football.
“He’s just a legend and that’s something to give back to him. That’s the reason why we’re all here at three degrees in the night at the Nurburgring and drive around in snow, maybe!
“So that’s sort of a nice thing to give back and to have to ‘Keep Fighting’ foundation on it as well. It’s awesome to have the Schumacher family behind this, it’s great to see.”
