"Stars and cars" event in Stuttgart

From Mercedes-Benz release

An impressive crowd of 72,000 Daimler employees and motor sport fans celebrated Formula 1 World Champion Lewis Hamilton and his Mercedes-Benz driver colleagues from Formula 1 and DTM during this past weekend's Stars & Cars Day in Stuttgart, Germany.

The Stars & Cars Day is the traditional final event of the Mercedes-Benz motor sport season and was held for the third time around the Mercedes-Benz World outside the main plant. It was staged for the 14th time in total since 1994; last year, a crowd of 60,000 attended the event.

Mercedes-Benz drivers: Bruno Spengler, Marco Engel, Lewis Hamilton, Heikki Kovalainen, Gary Paffett, Paul di Resta, Ralf Schumacher, Bernd Schneider, Pedro de la Rosa, Susie Stoddart, Mathias Lauda, Jamie Green.

Lewis Hamilton was the special guest and was enthusiastic about the event. He welcomed the many thousands visitors with "Guten Morgen Stuttgart, alles klar?" (Good morning, Stuttgart, everything ok?) and thanked "his friends", how he called the Mercedes employees and fans at "Stars & Cars".

Two other big shots today retired from motor racing: David Coulthard and Bernd Schneider. Between 1996 and 2004, David had completed 150 Grands Prix for the McLaren Mercedes partnership; he won 12 of them and was the 2001 runner-up in the Formula 1 World Championship. He finished his career with Red Bull.

Bernd looks back to 227 DTM and ITC races with Mercedes-Benz between 1991 and 2008. He won 43 of them and clinched five DTM championship titles as well as one each in the ITC and the FIA GT Series. Bernd drove his last race on 26th October and will now embark on a second career at Mercedes-AMG as a brand ambassador, instructor and test driver for the high-performance brand within Mercedes-Benz Cars.

The spectators of the event, among them World Boxing Champion Vitali Klitschko, experienced a packed and interesting programme with many demonstration laps with up-to-date and historic race cars, with Mercedes-Benz production cars from the present and the past and as highlights pit stop competitions of mechanics of Formula 1, DTM and historic cars.

Tributes to the successful drivers by Daimler CEO and Head of Mercedes-Benz Cars, Dr. Dieter Zetsche as well as interview and autograph sessions, an entertaining programme with live music and a special programme for children rounded off the event.