Formula 1 was an elite, European-dominated sport. However, since Liberty Media decided to purchase the league in 2017, the sport has been brought into the mainstream media. This change of ownership, along with the dominance of Lewis Hamilton over the last few years, has made Mercedes one of the most popular and successful sporting teams in the world.
While many may only think of Mercedes entering Formula 1 in 2010, the German automaker has a much longer history in the sport. Starting off as Daimler-Benz in 1954, Mercedes competed for 2 seasons before withdrawing from the sport at the end of the 1955 season. Mercedes entered Formula 1 by providing power units for a few teams before purchasing a works team for themselves. This saw 7-time World Champion Michael Schumacher come out of retirement to guide the team in 2010. Check out these facts about the serial championship-winning Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team:
10 Purchased Brawn GP
New regulations were introduced in 2009 that shocked many of the manufacturers on the grid. This saw the new Brawn GP team, run by ex-Ferrari engineer Ross Brawn, master the new rules and win both championships that year.
Mercedes, seeing the financial instability of the team, decided to purchase a 45% stake in Brawn before the start of the 2010 season. Aabar Investments purchased a further 30% of the company in November, helping secure a sponsorship agreement with Petronas.
9 Guided By Niki Lauda
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After Mercedes confirmed the purchase and announced their intention to rebrand the team as the Mercedes GP Petronas Formula One Team, Brawn was retained with all of his staff to ensure a smooth transition.
Mercedes also outsourced the expert guidance of F1 legend, Niki Lauda. While he did help mentor both the Jaguar F1 Team and Guenther Steiner when he was at the team, he was not retained when Red Bull bought the Jaguar team in 2005.
8 Brought Schumacher Out Of Retirement
While Brawn did have 2 very experienced drivers, Mercedes hoped to start fresh with an all-new driver lineup. This saw Nico Rosberg promoted from Williams to the Mercedes works team, along with the 7-time World Champion, Michael Schumacher.
Michael Schumacher, who retired a few years prior from Ferrari, decided to come out of retirement to help his mentor and race engineer, Ross Brawn. The relationship between the two definitely played a significant role in the team being able to convince Schumacher to lend his talents to the team in 2010.
7 Introducing Toto Wolff
In 2013, it came to light that Toto Wolff, part-owner and director at Williams Racing, was set to purchase a stake in Mercedes and take over a management position within the team. This came as Mercedes managed to bring the team up to 4th in the Constructors’ Championship.
Toto Wolff came in at the same time as Lewis Hamilton at the beginning of the 2013 season. This was a fairly successful season for the team, as Lewis Hamilton managed to put the car on pole at the Chinese Grand Prix and win the first race for the team in Hungary.
6 Brawn’s Engineers
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While Ross Brawn did eventually leave the team at the end of the 2013 season, he left the team in a competitive state. This is because 2014 saw the introduction of the Turbo-Hybrid era. This new era of Formula 1 saw Mercedes leapfrog the entire Paddock and stay at the top for 8 consecutive years.
This was entirely due to the development work and direction that Ross Brawn left the team in. Much of the staff and engineers back in Brackley predate the Mercedes team and go back almost 20 years. This shows the development strength of the team that came in handy later on in the 2017 battle with Ferrari.
5 The Turbo-Hybrid Era
The Turbo-Hybrid era of Formula 1 saw the order change significantly. While Mercedes was comfortably the “best of the rest,” the new regulations saw them climb straight to the top of the timesheets.
Red Bull, who were dominating the V8 era, quickly dropped down into 3rd position. Ferrari managed to challenge Mercedes on a few tracks on the race calendar, but the Championship was entirely between the two Mercedes drivers. This saw Lewis overpower Nico Rosberg in 2014 and 2015, only for a string of bad luck to hand Nico the title in 2016.
4 $2 Billion Engine
New fans of Formula 1 may be familiar with the cost cap. This is the financial limit placed on every team to control the amount of spending they do on the development of their car throughout a season. For the 2022 season, this amount is around $140 million.
Although this stops big teams from investing in new technologies, it does not affect investments already made. This made many critics argue the relevance of the cost cap, as Mercedes is rumored to have spent over $2 billion on the development of its V6 Hybrid engine.
3 Dual-Axis Steering
One of the most obvious displays of the engineering brilliance within Mercedes occurred at the beginning of the 2020 season. This was when the team showcased their new dual-axis steering system. This helped give the car more grip on the straights and through corners.
While the technology was appealed, Mercedes was allowed to use it for the remainder of the season. This made the entire 2020 season an absolute walk in the park for the team, making it one of the easiest Championships Lewis Hamilton ever won.
2 2021 Championship Fight
Although the 2020 Championship was fairly easy for Hamilton, the FIA cracked down on the team in 2021 and introduced slight modifications to the regulations that saw only Mercedes and Aston Martin (formerly Racing Point) affected. To handle the new regulations, Mercedes needed to drastically redesign their car compared to some of their competitors.
This saw Red Bull with the faster car for the first half of the season. While this may have disappointed many fans, Mercedes managed to bring drastic upgrades to the car and close the gap to Red Bull, leaving the entire Championship up to the last race of the season.
1 Porpoising Challenges In 2022
Mercedes managed to win 8 consecutive Constructors’ Championships from 2014 to 2021. During this time, they also managed to win 7 of the 8 Drivers’ Championships. This was an impressive run of form, breaking records held by Schumacher and Ferrari for over 10 years.
Despite this, the new regulations in 2022 saw the team struggle with porpoising. Due to the new ground-effect cars, Mercedes managed to go nearly sidepod-less in their new design. While this promised performance, they did not anticipate the porpoising effect that has now dropped them to the 3rd fastest team on the grid.