Over the past few months there has been rising speculation that the most successful F1 team of the last two decades - Mercedes - may leave the sport. But on Tuesday, Daimler boss Ola Kallenius made a recommitment to F1 and outlined a new strategy which will ensure deeper links with its AMG performance brand and F1. Already, the Mercedes F1 team is known as the Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 team, but this hints at perhaps a sister team with an AMG branding.
"With Project One we are taking a Formula One powertrain and putting it on the road, so it comes naturally to us to leverage Formula One even more for AMG going forward," he said outlining the new vision. "Formula One as the pinnacle of motorsport, the highest form of performance, we will use the technology we have developed in Formula One for performance hybrids and other exciting technologies in the future and put that into our AMG cars," Kallenius added, who took over the Daimler board last year.
The Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 team is the most successful F1 team of the century
Mercedes believes that all of its sub brands - AMG, G, EQ and Maybach will benefit from a push towards electrification but for more performance oriented offerings, an hybrid approach is going to be more useful which has been outlined by the company's continuous success for the six years in F1. In 2020 as well Mercedes and its star driver Lewis Hamilton are hot favourites for a seventh title on the trot - with both leading the constructors and driver's world championship.
Hamilton is on a path to becoming the most successful F1 driver of all time. He tails German legend Michael Schumacher with him just one race win away from equalling his record. This could actually happen this weekend at Schumacher's home race at the Nurburgring which returns to the F1 calendar after a gap of seven years.
Lewis Hamilton is on a path to be the most successful racing driver in the history of F1
This news comes at the back of numerous rumours about Mercedes F1 team principal Toto Wolffe leaving the team and Honda's shock exit from F1 at the end of the 2021 season as an engine supplier. Lewis Hamilton is also yet to renew his contract with the team but it expected to do so soon.
The Mercedes team sources just 30 million euros in investment from its parent Daimler and is on a path to be financially self dependent in the wake of the $145 million budget caps that are being introduced in 2022. This has been a massively successful project for the Daimler group.
