Mercedes closes turbo-hybrid chapter with a 12-engine salute at Brixworth
If you were anywhere near the Northamptonshire countryside this week, that wasn’t a lawnmower rattling in the distance. It was Mercedes-AMG High Performance Powertrains deciding to sign off the turbo-hybrid era in the only way that made sense: by lining up every major power unit from the last 12 years and letting their history breathe — literally.
At Brixworth, the engine shop that quietly defined a generation, Mercedes rolled out 12 power units and paired them with two cars that bookend their rule: the all-conquering W05 from 2014 and this season’s W16. Reserve driver Frederik Vesti handled demo duties, giving staff a rare trackside moment on their own doorstep as V6s echoed around the factory.
Call it a curtain call for a division that became the yardstick. From the minute the 1.6-litre V6 turbo-hybrids arrived in 2014, Mercedes’ PU set the tone. That first season was almost indecent: all four Mercedes-powered teams finished inside the top six in the Constructors’ standings. The stat sheet since then reads like a victory parade — 140 wins and 150 pole positions in 252 races, a 56% win rate spread across more than a decade, against Ferrari and Honda programmes that were throwing everything at them. Ten championship-winning seasons in 12 years, with McLaren’s recent form adding fresh silverware to the power unit’s résumé.
Hywel Thomas, managing director of Mercedes HPP, summed up the mood after a day that was part museum, part dyno run, part reunion.
“It’s been an incredible day here at Brixworth celebrating our success in the current turbo-hybrid era we’ve been racing since 2014,” he said. “We rarely have the chance to pause and reflect on what has been achieved so to do so with so many of our teammates was truly special. The stats are remarkable, and everyone involved at Brixworth, Brackley, and our colleagues at PETRONAS in Malaysia and around the world, can be rightfully proud of their contribution.
“This is the first time we’ve ever run an F1 car here at Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains and there couldn’t have been a more special time to do that.”
You could see why they picked now. The turbo-hybrid era officially ends with the 2025 season, and 2026 ushers in the most radical reset since 2014: same 1.6-litre V6 architecture, but with a major upshift in electrical deployment and a sharp pivot toward sustainability. For a place like Brixworth, that means celebration on a Friday, back to test benches on Monday.
“It was a brief pause today to mark the success of the past 12 years, but then right back to work as we focus on what we want to achieve ahead of 2026,” Thomas added. “It is such an exciting time as we stand on the verge of the next era in our sport. We are only a few weeks away from the new Power Unit taking to the circuit for that first track test in Barcelona and we look forward with anticipation to that moment in the way we did all the way back in 2014.”
There was a pleasing honesty to the event. Mercedes didn’t try to airbrush the tougher chapters of the ground-effect era, nor did they need to — the powertrain department’s output largely sustained the team’s trophy habit while others found their footing. That 2014–2021 run of seven straight Drivers’ titles and eight Constructors’ crowns is already stitched into the sport’s fabric. And as F1 pivots to its next rulebook, the same group that turned “Brixworth” into shorthand for horsepower is trying to do it again, this time with electrons doing a lot more heavy lifting.
A dozen engines laid out under grey English skies isn’t just nostalgia. It’s a reminder. When Mercedes built the W05’s PU106A, they didn’t just get the formula right — they defined it. The question for 2026 is familiar and, in that building, probably motivating: can they do it again?
