Mercedes-Benz has announced that it will conclude its ABB FIA Formula E story as a team entrant and manufacturer at the end of Season 8, in August 2022. Since HWA Racelab first took to the track in Season 5, laying the foundations for Mercedes' Formula E entry, the goal has been to create a benchmark team at every level and that run has now come to an end. The reason for this is that the company has deliberately chosen to shift resources for this accelerated ramp-up of electrification, including the development of three electric-only architectures to be launched in 2025. Therefore, Mercedes will reallocate resource away from its ABB FIA Formula E World Championship programme and towards applying the lessons learned in competition to product development in series.
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Moving forward, the company will concentrate its works motorsport activities on Formula 1. However, the company will continue to build on its learnings through future product architectures like the AMG.EA platform, the dedicated performance vehicle electric platform that will be launched in 2025, and projects such as the Vision EQXX.
Mercedes-Benz will depart Formula E at the end of Season 8
While Mercedes-Benz will depart Formula E at the end of Season 8, the team's leadership group has begun exploring options for the team to continue competing in the series during the Gen 3 era, including a potential sale to new owners.
Markus Schäfer, Member of the Board of Management of Daimler AG and Mercedes-Benz AG; responsible for Daimler Group Research and Mercedes-Benz Cars COO said, “At Mercedes-Benz, we have committed ourselves to fighting climate change at full force in this decade. This demands the accelerated transformation of our company, products and services towards an emission-free and software-driven future, and to achieve this, we must give full focus to our core activities. In motorsport, Formula E has been a good driver for proving our expertise and establishing our Mercedes-EQ brand, but in future we will keep pushing technological progress – especially on the electric drive side – focusing on Formula One. It is the arena where we constantly test our technology in the most intense competition the automotive world has to offer – and the three-pointed star hardly shines brighter anywhere else. F1 offers rich potential for technology transfer, as we can see in ongoing projects such as the Vision EQXX, and our team and the entire series will achieve net-zero status by the end of the decade.”
