Mercedes-Benz's connection to Grand Prix racing stretches back to the 1930s, when the Silver Arrows dominated the European Championship alongside Auto Union, funded by the Nazi regime. Rudolf Caracciola won three European titles for Mercedes-Benz during this period.
Mercedes returned to what had become the Formula One World Championship in 1954, fielding the technologically advanced W196 under the direction of Alfred Neubauer. Juan Manuel Fangio, transferred mid-season from Maserati, won the team's debut race at the 1954 French Grand Prix and went on to claim the 1954 and 1955 Drivers' Championships. In 1955, Stirling Moss also won the British Grand Prix for the team. Following the 1955 Le Mans disaster — which killed Mercedes-Benz sportscar driver Pierre Levegh and more than 80 spectators — the company withdrew from motor racing entirely. In their two Formula One seasons, Mercedes won nine races, including three with the streamlined closed-wheel "Type Monza" body, the only closed-wheel victories in Formula One history.
Mercedes returned to the sport in 1994 as an engine supplier in association with the British engineering company Ilmor, supplying McLaren from 1995 onward. That partnership produced twelve Constructors' and fourteen Drivers' Championships for teams using Mercedes-Benz engines, including Mika Häkkinen's back-to-back titles in 1998 and 1999 and Lewis Hamilton's first championship in 2008.
The current team's entry can be traced back to Tyrrell Racing, which competed as a constructor from 1970 until 1998. British American Tobacco purchased the entry to launch British American Racing (BAR) in 1999, with Honda as engine partner. BAR became Honda Racing F1 in 2006 when British American Tobacco withdrew. Honda announced its exit from Formula One in December 2008 during the financial crisis, and team principal Ross Brawn led a management buyout, renaming the team Brawn GP. Using Mercedes-Benz engines, Jenson Button won six of the first seven races in 2009, taking the Drivers' Championship while Brawn won the Constructors' title in their sole season — the first time in the sport's sixty-year history a team had achieved both titles in its maiden season.
Daimler AG purchased a 45.1% stake in Brawn GP in November 2009, with Petronas joining as title sponsor, and the team was rebranded as Mercedes GP Petronas Formula One Team from 2010. Ross Brawn continued as team principal.
The team's early years were unspectacular. Michael Schumacher returned from retirement to partner Nico Rosberg, but Schumacher was unable to win a race during three seasons with the team. Rosberg took the team's first pole position as a works team since 1955 at the 2012 Chinese Grand Prix and won the race — the first win for a German driver in a German car in Formula One history. Lewis Hamilton joined from McLaren for the 2013 season. In the AMG-branded naming era from 2012, Toto Wolff joined as executive director in January 2013.
Major aerodynamic and power unit regulation changes for 2014 — mandating 1.6-litre V6 turbo-hybrid engines — transformed the competitive order. Mercedes produced a power unit far ahead of its rivals, and the team won 18 of 19 races in the first season of the new regulations. Hamilton won the 2014 Drivers' Championship 67 points clear of Rosberg. The team won 16 races in each of the following two seasons. Rosberg claimed the 2016 title by five points over Hamilton before immediately announcing his retirement.
The dominant years from 2014 to 2021 produced eight consecutive Constructors' Championships and seven consecutive Drivers' Championships — Hamilton taking six of the seven (2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020) and Rosberg one (2016). Hamilton became the most decorated driver in Formula One history during this period, surpassing Michael Schumacher's record of seven Drivers' Championships with his seventh in 2020. The team won over 100 races in this eight-year stretch.
The run ended in 2021 in controversial circumstances. Hamilton led Max Verstappen (Red Bull-Honda) by a significant margin in the final race in Abu Dhabi when a late safety car restart, managed by race director Michael Masi in a way that violated the sporting regulations, enabled Verstappen to overtake Hamilton on the final lap and win both the race and the championship. Mercedes filed an intention to appeal but later withdrew it. The team nonetheless secured an eighth consecutive Constructors' title.
Major regulation changes reintroducing ground effect for 2022 caught Mercedes off-guard. Their radical "zero-pod" design concept did not perform as expected and the team was no longer the outright pace-setter. Valtteri Bottas was replaced by George Russell, and while the team appeared regularly on the podium, they won only one race in 2022. The 2023 season ended without a win for the first time since 2011, with the team finishing second in the Constructors' Championship.
In February 2024, Mercedes announced that Hamilton would leave at season's end after signing with Ferrari. The team confirmed Mercedes junior Kimi Antonelli as his replacement. In 2025, Russell won races in Canada and Singapore while Antonelli claimed his maiden Formula One victory, and the team finished second in the Constructors' Championship. Going into 2026, with new regulations heavily favouring electrification, Mercedes were widely forecast to be competitive once more, and the first two rounds of the season saw back-to-back 1-2 finishes for Russell and Antonelli.
The team is owned jointly by Mercedes-Benz Group, Toto Wolff (who also serves as team principal), and Ineos (one-third stake acquired in January 2022). In 2025 cybersecurity entrepreneur George Kurtz also joined as a co-owner and technology advisor. The team employs approximately 2,000 people at its Brackley base, close to the Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains engine facility in Brixworth, formerly the Ilmor Engineering plant. Petronas has been title sponsor since 2010, with the partnership renewed in 2022 through the 2026 season.