Mercedes has been struggling to win a race since 2022. The last race they won was in the 2022 Brazilian Grand Prix. That was the only race they won that year. Since then, they have been winless. Last year, the only non-Red Bull team to win a race was the Maranello-based team. However, the Brackley team suffered because of their rear downforce and issues at high-speed tracks. Even in 2024, they are dealing with almost the same issues. They still need more performance in high-speed circuits. But the Mercedes F1 team failed to understand their car and what it is capable of. They are dealing with a correlation problem between the simulation results and the results on the track.
Clearly, there is a big gap between the Silver Arrows and the current reigning champions Red Bull. In fact, Ferrari, McLaren, and Aston Martin have performed way better than the duo of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton. Moreover, Mercedes had one of the worst starts to a season in 2024. It will be Hamilton’s final season with the Brackley team, but so far, it blows. Despite going through a struggling phase, Mercedes became the first team to exceed a turnover of 500 million pounds in Formula One.
Mercedes Broke The 500 Million Pounds Turnover Bracket
According to Motorsport.com, the parent company of the Silver Arrows, Mercedes Benz Grand Prix Ltd. recently announced a 546.5 million pounds turnover for the whole 2023 season. As a result, Toto Wolff’s team became the first F1 team to exceed 500 million pounds in turnover. Moreover, the latest published accounts suggest there has been an increase of 71.9 million pounds from the previous year’s figure. In 2022, the German outfit had a turnover of 474.6 million pounds. On the other hand, Red Bull Technology, which runs the Red Bull F1 team, had 385.6 million pounds in turnover back in 2022.
But coming back to Mercedes, the increase in turnovers was not enough as they recorded a little fall in profit. Moreover, the profits of the Mercedes F1 team went down to 83.8 million pounds. On the contrary, in 2022, it was up to 89.7 million pounds. For this slight dip in profit last year, a couple of factors played their parts in the financial year. Increased costs and higher payments of tax in 2023 were crucial factors for the dip in profit of the Mercedes F1 team.
What are the key factors for the increase In turnover for the Silver Arrows?
Mercedes needed a new chassis for the 2024 F1 challenger. The higher figure of turnovers helped the German outfit in investing extra to change W15. Moreover, the early work Toto Wolff’s team was able to do while producing the 2023 gearbox and parts of the suspension that they supplied to their customer Williams F1 team in 2024 earned them 52.2 million pounds.
Mercedes was able to complete the early work before Aston Martin, another customer, used the 2024 components. Moreover, as per reports, there has been an increase in staffing levels on average. They have added 175 staff, and the overall number is now close to 1289. That was last year. Then, in 2022, they had 1114 staff.
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