Why did the Mercedes safety car feature an orange livery at Silverstone?

F1 Grand Prix, GP Great Britain, Silverstone Circuit

The Mercedes Formula One team ran a special livery for last weekend's British Grand Prix at Silverstone to celebrate the launch of the CONCEPT AMG GT XX. In addition, the Mercedes AMG safety car also appeared in an entirely orange livery.

Mercedes' F1 car, the W16 featured an orange Mercedes logo on the nose instead of the conventional silver emblem. In addition, the same orange logo appeared on George Russell and Andrea Kimi Antonelli's race suits - orange branding over black, adding a mild pop to an overall clean look.

The German marque revealed that the orange logo and the safety car's one-off livery were used to celebrate the launch of the Mercedes-AMG's revolutionary AMG One, the CONCEPT AMG GT XX which has been inspired by F1 technology.

"It's all to do with our celebration of the three-pointed star's past, present, and future, as F1 gets set to celebrate its 75th anniversary, at the home of the very first F1 World Championship race in 1950.

"The future will be seen with the CONCEPT AMG GT XX, Mercedes-AMG's pioneering technology programme, that recently launched at Mercedes-AMG's Affalterbach headquarters with George, Kimi and Valtteri.

"A concept car that offers insight into the first series-production model based on AMG.EA high performance [was] on display at Silverstone. The concept car's eye-catching sunset beam orange livery is inspired by the revolutionary Mercedes C111 vehicles of the 1960s and 1970s.

"The sunset beam orange accents [featured] on the W16 including the famous three-pointed stars on its nose and engine cover, driver overalls, and both George and Kimi [ran] special helmets incorporating the colour in celebration of the CONCEPT AMG GT XX launch.

"The high-voltage battery in the CONCEPT AMG GT XX is a completely new development. It benefits from all the experience from the AMG ONE and Formula 1 as well as the knowledge of the best engineers from Mercedes-AMG in Affalterbach and Mercedes-AMG High Performance Powertrains (HPP) in Brixworth."