Benz & Cie. entered a car in the world's first motor race, the 1894 Paris–Rouen, finishing 14th. In 1908, Benz scored second and third at the French Grand Prix. That era also produced the Blitzen Benz, a land speed record car that reached 228.1 km/h in 1911, faster than any other vehicle of the time. Meanwhile, Daimler's Mercedes marque swept the 1914 French Grand Prix 1–2–3.
After the First World War, Benz introduced a mid-engined layout to Grand Prix racing at the 1923 Italian Grand Prix at Monza. Mercedes, under Ferdinand Porsche's engineering direction, won the Targa Florio in 1922 and 1924 and began competing at Indianapolis. Rudolf Caracciola won the inaugural 1926 German Grand Prix at AVUS in a Mercedes.
When Grand Prix regulations for 1934 set a maximum dry weight of 750 kg with no engine capacity limit, Daimler-Benz re-entered Grand Prix racing with factory support. Both Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union appeared in unpainted silver, earning the collective nickname Silver Arrows. Starting from limited form in 1934, the Mercedes-Benz W25 and subsequent models grew to dominate, with the W125 producing over 600 hp by 1937. Rudolf Caracciola won European Championship titles in 1935, 1937, and 1938 driving for Mercedes. The team also produced a remarkable achievement in 1939, building the tiny W165 in eight months to contest and win the Tripoli Grand Prix, run to Voiturette rules specifically designed to exclude German machinery.
Mercedes returned to what had become Formula One in 1954 with the technologically advanced W196, run in both open-wheel and streamlined configurations. Juan Manuel Fangio joined mid-season from Maserati and won the 1954 Drivers' Championship for the team. The 1955 season saw Fangio and Stirling Moss share six of nine victories between them, securing the championship 1–2. Mercedes also won the 1955 World Sportscar Championship with the 300 SLR. Following the Le Mans disaster of that year — in which a 300 SLR collided with another car, killing more than eighty spectators — Mercedes withdrew from all factory racing at season's end.
Mercedes returned to Formula One as an engine supplier to Sauber in 1994, then moved to McLaren in 1995. The McLaren-Mercedes partnership won Drivers' Championships with Mika Häkkinen in 1998 and 1999, and again with Lewis Hamilton in 2008. The partnership lasted through 2014. In 2010, Mercedes purchased the Brawn GP team outright and re-entered as a constructor. Under team principal Ross Brawn and later Toto Wolff, the team won eight consecutive Constructors' Championships from 2014 to 2021 and seven Drivers' titles in the same period. Mercedes subsequently re-partnered with McLaren as an engine supplier from 2021, with McLaren going on to win the Constructors' Championship in 2024 and 2025, and Lando Norris claiming the 2025 Drivers' title.
Mercedes returned to competitive sportscar racing in 1952 with the gull-winged W194, winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the Carrera Panamericana that year. After the 1955 withdrawal, the marque returned to sportscar competition via AMG in the late 1960s, entering the Spa 24 Hours with the 300 SEL 6.3. In 1985 Mercedes-Benz became the engine supplier for the Sauber team in the World Sportscar Championship. The Sauber C9 powered by Mercedes won the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the World Sports Prototype Championship in 1989, and the C11 achieved similar dominance in 1990. In 1997 the CLK GTR, built by AMG, won both the teams' and drivers' championships in the inaugural FIA GT Championship, repeating the feat in 1998. The CLK's successor, the CLR, suffered a series of accidents at Le Mans 1999 in which the car became airborne, ending the factory prototype programme.
In 1994, Al Unser Jr. won the Indianapolis 500 in a Penske car powered by a purpose-built Ilmor pushrod engine badged as Mercedes-Benz — an engine designed around a loophole in the production-engine rules that was immediately closed afterward. Mercedes competed in CART full-time from 1995 to 2000, winning nine races in 1997 and the Manufacturers' Championship that year. In the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters, Mercedes-Benz entered the series from 1988 and competed as a factory team until 2018, when it departed for Formula E. Mercedes won both the 2020–21 and 2021–22 Formula E World Drivers' and Teams' Championships with Nyck de Vries and Stoffel Vandoorne before selling the team to McLaren. Mercedes-Benz is one of only three constructors, alongside McLaren and Ford, to have completed the Triple Crown of Motorsport.