TG gets private audience with terrifying 500bhp 'beast'. DTM hero Bernd Schneider is the lion tamer

Sweaty, emotionless and nursing a neck-ache, five-time DTM champion Bernd Schneider emerges from the cockpit of a prototype GT3 racing car with ominous feedback.

"I'm a bit hot," the steady German quietly says. Poor bloke. He's just had his senses toasted for five hours straight, strapped inside a cockpit with sub-optimal ventilation, doing difficult track work around a tight, unforgiving circuit in north-east Spain in a car with no traction control.

To top it all off, a set of blazing hot side-exit exhausts have been busy boiling his undercarriage, too.

Dante himself would squawk at the trials Bernd has just experienced, because though he might have walked through the seven circles of hell, he never had to contend with the Inferno of this new Mercedes-AMG GT3.

"It's a monster," Bernd smiles. "This car is a beast."

The beast, as Bernd aptly describes it, is Mercedes-AMG's upcoming GT3 contender for the 2016 season, here undergoing preliminary set-up work ahead of a final Balance of Performance test later this year.

Simply put, it's the GT3 car customer teams will soon be able to buy, taking over duties from the old SLS AMG GT3 - of which they sold 84 to deep-pocketed racers around the world - and is the work of a very special team of AMG specialists.

You see, with the demise of the SLS road car, AMG needed another strong contender to transform into a GT3 warrior. Something capable of fighting it out in what is fast becoming one of the toughest racing series in the world.

So, step forward the new AMG GT road car, here stripped to its bare shell (just the aluminium roof and chassis remain related to the road-going GT) and fitted with a wider carbon-fibre and Kevlar body; wider even than that SLS GT3.

Then comes the heart; out goes the new road-car's twin-turbo, 4.0-litre V8, and in steps the old 6.2-litre, naturally aspirated V8.

When slotted into the nose of the new AMG GT3, it'll produce around 500bhp, pegged back by two restrictors (currently measuring in at 36mm), as per the FIA's Balance of Performance rules, which take into account aero, power and weight.

"For me, the SLS was great because in five years we never gave that engine any performance updates," says Bernd about the 6.2. "It was exactly the same, performance-wise, from 2011 to now."

Mercedes-AMG project manager for customer sports Stefan Wendl elaborates. "The reason we used the 6.2," he says with a smile, "is because it's famous with our customers. And bulletproof."

Wendl notes that this unit is now cheaper for the customer, because it's been battle-hardened, having seen five long years of service in the SLS AMG.

Each one is still built to AMG's 'one man, one engine' philosophy, too, which makes Wendl's inner AMG-geek happy. "What a lucky man," he beams.

"Each engine is one of his babies. There are other development guys who are really jealous because they also do good work on the car. But only the engine guy gets to put his signature on it. This is good."

What's also good is the fact it's lighter than the SLS, too. "We have the ability to get lower than 1,300kg," he says, "but we're trying to match the weight in relation to the power and aero."

Ah yes, aero. God, it looks fantastic, doesn't it? All curled up, tight aggression, with a monster rear wing - the same spec as the SLS - big enough to make a toddler weep. It produces lots of lovely downforce (we're not allowed to know how much just yet), while wheelarch louvres help reduce pressure.

Then there's the constant battle between running as low a ride height as possible, being able to run on a variety of track surfaces, and managing the underfloor airflow and downforce.

"I don't want to run these cars with more power and less aero," says Stefan, "because good aero is something the customers can rely on. Maybe in the past, cars used to slide through fast corners and went sideways everywhere. This was not always the safest or fastest way," he says, with logic TG is struggling to comprehend.

Yet that's the key focus of everything here; sure, the car looks like a lairy beast and - in its current, raw form - is a beast. But Stefan and Bernd's jobs are to hone it into something altogether... friendlier. Like, believe it or not, the SLS GT3.

"We learned a lot about drivability from our customer feedback on the SLS programme," Stefan says. "They loved the engine, of course, but they loved the package. It's the engine together with the aero and suspension... it was fast but not exhausting to drive in comparison to some other brands that were also fast. The SLS was common. This was a key aspect for our success, and a key focus for the AMG GT3, to build a car usable by all drivers on a wide range of circuits."

It's why Stefan has to make sure the car isn't set up for a driver like Bernd, because "if that happens, we'll end up developing a DTM car."

Bernd, too, has learned his lesson after five years on the SLS programme, instructing, teaching and learning from customers about exactly what they want from a racing machine.

"I've driven with loads of gentlemen drivers, and I know what they need," he says, with that matter-of-fact, racing-driver logic. "They prefer - and need - a car that's safer on the rear. If the car is a beast on the rear, it's very difficult to handle, and they struggle.

"But if they can control the car, they can really get the best performance out of themselves. It's all me and Thomas J??ger (overall head of the customer sports programme) think about when setting up these cars," he says.

Even the seat comfort is scrutinised to the nth degree. "We have to compare to the SLS's very high standards," says Bernd, still rubbing his shoulder from his morning's onslaught.

There's obviously a long road ahead, however, because right now, Schneider reckons the AMG GT3 is a spiky little bugger. "You feel the shorter wheelbase, so it's a lot more pointy than the SLS GT3 ever was," he says.

"It changes direction better, and you feel a bit more accuracy in the car, but right now we're running without traction control, and... the balance isn't there at the moment. We're also struggling with the downshifts, we're playing a bit with the suspension, and making adjustments to the ABS to keep it stable."

You'd be hard pressed to ascertain such insight from the way Bernd was hotfooting it around the Circuit d'Alcarr s; it looked planted, stiff and fast - that 6.2 proving yet again that AMG knows how to make engines sound bloody amazing.

Stefan is also pretty happy with the progress they've made in such a short space of time. "It's not normal that you make a brand-new car from scratch like this, that you can then drive and already begin set-up work from this early on," he says.

These early tests are all about reliability of components and making sure nothing falls apart - a point alluded to by a team mechanic jumping on the rear diffuser.

"We need to find out where the limit is, and push the limit as high as possible, so that hopefully the lifetime of components will be even higher than those of the SLS," he adds.

Bernd agrees. "For me, it's important to learn how the car reacts, so when we do set-ups later on, I have the experience and knowledge to say what we should do if we have problems with the balance. It's more important next year too, because when they sell the car to customers and the customers struggle with something, they can ask me for help," he says. With five DTM titles under his belt, we'd wager that's a good hotline to have.

But Stefan and Bernd are quietly content with the progress and confident that the car will come good in 2016. "It looks good," Stefan smiles, "and cars that normally look good are fast, aren't they? I don't know many ugly cars that are fast."

On that parameter, then, the AMG GT3 is sure to be a rocket ship, but both are acutely aware of the challenge it'll face. "It's got big shoes to fill," Stefan admits, "and the market is much stronger. In 2010, we had six competitors, and now it's 38 or 39 actual homologated GT3 cars."

Sweaty days ahead, then. Not that Bernd really minds - his racing honour won't allow him to succumb to the vagaries of aircon. "When I raced the SLS a while back and had the chance to use the aircon, I didn't because it costs too much horsepower. I raced with a Japanese guy, and after his stint I asked, 'Did you run the aircon?' He replied, 'No, of course not - I'm a samurai!' After my stint, he asked me the same thing, whether or not I used the air-conditioning. I said, 'Hey, of course not - I'm German!'"

The driver: Bernd Schneider
Though Bernd's short stint in Formula One wasn't his finest hour, he's no slouch. The 50-year-old German has raced at Le Mans and won the 1995 International Touring Car Championship, the 1997 FIA GT world championship... and five DTM titles (1995, 2000, 2001, 2003 and 2006) for Mercedes-Benz. His nickname? Um, 'Mr DTM'.

Team manager: Stefan Wendl
AMG's GT3 programme manager Stefan Wendl earned his spurs setting up race cars, and has spent the last few years as Bernd's race engineer. He also worked on the hugely successful SLS GT3.