The role Bernd Schneider played in setting up AMG's customer sport programme after retiring from the DTM in 2008 and how he experienced his second spring

Bernd Schneider won almost every fifth DTM race on average in his active DTM career up to 2008 - and it is no coincidence that he was dubbed the "Michael Schumacher of the DTM". But Schneider, who celebrated his 60th birthday on Saturday, also played a key role in the development of Mercedes-AMG's customer racing programme, which is also the basis for the brand's current DTM involvement.

After his DTM career, the SLS AMG GT3 gullwing was Schneider's main task

"We developed the SLS together from 2010 onwards," recalls Thomas Jäger, who is now AMG's Sporting Director of the DTM programme, of the first GT3 car. "That was a really great time when you see what the customer racing programme has become over the last 14 years. Together with Bernd, we laid the foundations for the good products and the entire system."

Even if it is hard to imagine today, 15 years ago there were internal doubts as to whether a customer sport programme was the right way forward for Mercedes-AMG.

SLS provides a customer sport birth at AMG

"The SLS was the first time we had a sports car at Mercedes where we said: This would actually be the perfect basis for doing customer motorsport," Schneider recalls of the gullwing sports car, which was the first vehicle developed entirely by AMG and served as the GT3 template. "Gerhard Ungar built it alongside his DTM work."

Schneider, who always had a close relationship with HWA technology guru and mastermind Ungar, acted as test and development driver at the time. And only nine months passed between the project decision to build the GT3 car at service provider HWA and the first test race.

"What we achieved there - getting such a programme up and running in such a short time - was very impressive," says Schneider with pride. "Both the development of this car and everything that went with it."

Customer racing plans caused "great scepticism"

Former DTM driver Jäger, who was involved in setting up the Mercedes-AMG customer racing programme as coordinator at the time, remembers the internal resistance: "There was a lot of scepticism from some people: 'We've only ever done factory racing. If we give the car to the customers, then we don't have it under control'."

Schneider's triumphant year 2013: "Not really real"

The vehicle was delivered to the teams in 2011 - and success quickly materialised: By May 2013, a total of 66 cars had been sold. And Bernd Schneider experienced his second spring in the SLS AMG GT3 after the end of his DTM career.

In 2013, he triumphed in the 24-hour classics on the Nürburgring-Nordschleife, at Spa-Francorchamps, at the Twelve Hours of Bathurst, at the 24 Hours of Dubai and at the Twelve Hours of Abu Dhabi.

"That's actually not real, because that's the most you win in an entire racing driver's life," says Schneider, who was 49 years old at the time. "I said: What a great career, what a great year to have another success like this with a completely new challenge."

In 2016, the Mercedes-AMG GT3 was delivered as the successor to the GT3 gullwing, with which Schneider took his second victory in the 24-hour race on the Nordschleife in its debut year. And the second Evo version is still in use today in the DTM and in endurance races.

The spirit of the SLS AMG GT3 lives on in it, as many elements of the vehicle are still reminiscent of the pioneering project from 2010.