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SLS AMG GT3 Is Safe, Ready for the 2011 VLN Season

With the start of the new VLN season (Nurburgring Endurance Championships) a few days from now, the SLS AMG GT3 is ready to show its best on the racetrack, while also meeting stringent safety requirements. The racer has gone through extensive crash tests and trials that have confirmed the compliance with these standards.

“All the tests conducted by the Mercedes Benz safety specialists are more stringent by far than those prescribed for racing cars by the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile),” Daimler says in a statement for the press.

For instance, the car has been developed in terms of the structural safety of the aluminum spaceframe, direct protection of the driver against impact loads and fire protection.

The safety tests have been conducted at the Mercedes-Benz Technology Center in Sindelfingen – where the passive safety features of all series-production AMG and Mercedes-Benz models are also developed and tested.

They included three crash tests and a static test with the racing version of the gull-wing model: a front, side and rear impact plus a roof deformation test. All the test configurations were specifically chosen to reflect typical racetrack accident situations as closely as possible.

The frontal impact simulated a collision with a wall, such as might occur in the pit lane or – as may typically happen on urban circuits – with the side barrier marking the course. In the side impact test the SLS AMG GT3 was rammed by an identical car of the same model at an angle of 90 degrees, and exactly at door height.

In the rear collision test the gull-wing was likewise struck by a rigid barrier at 50 km/h, with 100% overlap. The static roof deformation test simulated the loads that may occur during a rollover. In this cased a ram impacted the so-called A-pillar node with a precisely defined force.

There will be six customer teams competing on the North Loop with the racing version of the gullwing model, starting with April 2nd, when the new VLN debuts.
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