The car itself suggests the crash followed the destruction of No. “An accident on a corner” was the Motor reporter’s only comment. Pilette, most probably assigned the task of breaking up the opposition, retired on the 4th of the 20 laps. Thirty seven cars started the 1914 French Grand Prix. Nothing seemed to have been left to chance. The pit crew for “The Great White Team” was well organized, with fuel, oil and water in color-coded containers and charts galore. In the months previous, team members Christian Lautenschlager, Otto Salzer, Louis Wagner, Max Sailer and Theodore Pilette (the Belgian Mercedes importer and driver of the display car) totted up 30,000 test miles on the 23.3-mile Lyon circuit. The hoods of the cars were not raised, although almost everyone knew the engine inside was based upon the aero unit Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft had developed for Kaiser Wilhelm. Still, the German competition looked awesome. That July morning, however, the partisan French crowd awaited another “inevitability”-a French victory courtesy of 19 winner Georges Boillot, with his Peugeot teammates or the Delages finishing not far behind. Less than a week before, at Sarajevo, an assassin’s bullet had killed the archduke Franz Ferdinand. On July 4th, 1914, five of these cars lined up for the start of the French Grand Prix near Lyon. About the 1914 Mercedes Type 18/100 Grand Prix
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