No deal for AMG and Erebus

The controversial relationship that was launched with such fanfare in 2012 between Mercedes-AMG and the Australian Erebus V8 Supercars team has quietly ended.

Both parties have confirmed to motoring.com.au they have no intention of renewing the two-year Customers Sports contract that expired at the end of 2014.

However, Erebus plans to continue to race the E 63 it paid Benz’s hot shop and its racing partner HWA to help it develop for V8 Supercars for the foreseeable future and at least until the new Gen2 era the category enters in 2017.

That means the current W212 body shape could continue in the V8 Supercars championship for some time after it is superseded on the road by a new generation E-Class that will have its global reveal at the Frankfurt show in September.

And AMG seems prepared to let that happen without argument.

Erebus is owned by real estate millionaire Betty Klimenko, who has a long history as an AMG road-car customer and also a racing customer, campaigning the SLS in GT3.

The privateer team only managed  to get on to the V8 Supercars grid with the E 63 in 2013 after waging a long and at times fractious campaign to win approval from Benz’s global bosses in the face of heated opposition from Mercedes-Benz Australia/Pacific.

Erebus signed a two-year Customer Sports that licensed it to race the E 63 in V8s and spent millions of dollars developing the car’s aerodynamic and engine packages with HWA. Klimenko also took over Stone Brothers Racing to mount her campaign.

The debate between AMG and Erebus over a renewed contract rolled through much of 2014, with the team initially pushing for its escalation toward a full factory arrangement, while AMG made it clear it would only consider continuing a Customer Sports contract.

But with Erebus now in full charge of M159 engine maintenance and development, AMG actually has very little contribution to make to the program.

“We are loose connected,” AMG chief Tobias Moers told motoring.com.au. “They have the car, it looks like an E-Class, but there is no contract.

“Betty invested a huge amount of money in that racing team, it’s fair enough to let them race with that car, with the investment that they did.”

While at times Erebus has sought to promote the AMG association with strong branding, at the 2015 season-opening Clipsal 500 the two team cars of Will Davison and Ash Walsh ran only the three-pointed star on grille and boot.

“There is no contract in place and the understanding is there is no real reason or need to have a contract because of the services we no longer take directly from AMG or HWA,” explained Erebus boss Ryan Maddison.

“AMG have had other priorities since the start of the year and I don’t know where we stand,” he revealed. “Obviously our cars right now run the star at the front and the rear and if we choose we can run the original badging as per the contract that was in place.”

Maddison made it clear the team’s future use of the E 63 depended on where it landed in terms of sponsorship and manufacturer relationships, although with a new set of technical regulations due for 2017 he doubted any brand -- such as the much mooted Lexus – would come in before then.

“Our position is to get as much as we can from what we invested in in terms of the shape of the car and run that successfully and campaign that until Gen2,” Maddison said. “Right now the rules and regulations for that are being established.”

Erebus got off to a troubled start in its third V8 season in Adelaide, with eighth place in race two for Walsh the highlight. The team is waiting on significant locally-developed engine upgrades to arrive early in the season which it is confident will boost competitiveness.