Mercedes F1 factory staff in Northamptonshire celebrate historic sixth consecutive double title in style
The hundreds of employees at the Mercedes bases in Brackley and Brixworth came together with Lewis Hamilton, Valtteri Bottas and team bosses on Wednesday (November 6).
"It's very difficult to find the right words to express my gratitude to all of you for continuing to push every year," the championship winning driver told the crowd.
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Hide Ad"It's thanks to you that I've been living my dream, that I've been able to succeed and reach this incredible achievement in my life.
"I'm incredibly proud to be part of this group and I can't thank you enough for everything that you've done."
In the morning, team principal Toto Wolff, Hamilton and Bottas visited Mercedes-AMG High Performance Powertrains in Brixworth with the team that designed and built the championship-winning power unit.
In the afternoon, they came to Brackley to celebrate with the team responsible for the chassis of the all-conquering F1 car.
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Hide AdWolff said: "I remember our first management off-site meeting in 2013 where we put our objectives on the wall -it was the first time we wrote down, 'we want to fight for a championship'.
"But Aldo Costa said that we should be more ambitious and make it plural - championships.
"My first thought was that that's too far-fetched. But we ended up putting it on the wall. And here we are, almost seven years later, having won six double championships.
"I still pinch myself sometimes because I can't quite believe it. And this all down to the extremely hard work of this amazing team in Brixworth and Brackley."
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Hide AdThe 2019 United States Grand Prix marked the 100th victory for Brixworth and Brackley together, a series that began with the 2009 Australian Grand Prix.
About 1,500 men and women spent months to conceive, design, manufacture, build and improve the Silver Arrow.
With two races to go in the 2019 season, the team has secured 14 race victories, nine of them 1-2s, and 695 points.
Bottas said: "I have no words to describe how proud I am to be part of this amazing team and how grateful I am for the work that every single one of you has done to make this achievement possible.
"I can only imagine the workload, the commitment and all the sacrifices you've made to make this happen, so thank you very much!"