Bernd Schneider, who competed in his last DTM race at the season’s finale on 26 October 2008 at the Hockenheimring circuit, will now provide support to the AMGdevelopment team as a test driver and will also pass on his know-how as an expert instructor at the AMG Driving Academy. The record-breaking DTM champion will also be much in demand as a conversation partner at both customer and press events. His duties with AMG began officially on 1 January 2009.
“We are very happy to be welcoming Bernd Schneider to AMG. As a fair sportsman, Bernd Schneider enjoys a great deal of recognition and respect throughout the entire motor racing world and automotive industry. I am certain that our development team will benefit greatly from Bernd Schneider’s expertise. With his pleasant manner, he is also bound to be a great asset not only at customer and press events, but also at the events of our AMG Driving Academy where he will be involved as an instructor,” explains Volker Mornhinweg, Chairman of Mercedes-AMG GmbH.
Bernd Schneider: “I see my decision to work for AMGfollowing my career as an active racing driver as absolutely logical. I was able to celebrate most of my victories, and also the most satisfying ones, in the AMG Mercedes team, and now I am looking forward to the new tasks as an instructor, test driver and brand ambassador for AMG.”
Schneider’s racing career: textbook perfect
As one of Germany’s most successful racing drivers of all time with five DTM titles and one each in the ITC and FIAGT Championship, Bernd Schneider
(44 years of age) can look back over an extremely impressive career. The first milestone was his victory in the 1980 Junior World Kart Championship. After winning his spurs in the Formula Ford monoposto series he entered the German Formula 3 championships, which he won in 1987. Prior to this, in 1986, he had first competed with Ford in the DTM. After two years of Formula 1 with Zakspeed in 1988 and 1989, as well as sports car racing with Porsche in 1990 and 1991, Schneider moved to Mercedes and the Zakspeed DTM team as the successor to Michael Schumacher for the last two races in 1991. In 1992 he made another move to AMG Mercedes, where Schneider has remained to the present day.
Over the subsequent 17 years, as part of the AMG and HWA teams, he won 43 out of 226 races in the DTM and ITC, and eleven races in the 1997 and 1998 FIA GT Championships. All in all he won seven titles in these three championships.
In his penultimate DTM race at Le Mans, he emerged victorious from a tough but fair duel in atrocious conditions with the new DTM champion, Timo Scheider, thereby proving that even at the age of 44, he has lost none of his competitive spirit. Bernd Schneider ended the 2008 DTM season in sixth place in the final race at the Hockenheimring, ranking him in sixth place overall in the driver standings with a total of 34 points.
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