Toto Wolff admits that Mercedes is set to reduce the number of teams it supplies its engines to.

It currently supplies McLaren, Aston Martin and Williams, next season the German manufacturer will supply Alpine also whilst Aston Martin switches to Honda.

"Our current mindset is, also discussing with Ola, that we will reduce the amount of teams we're going to supply in the next cycle," says Wolff in the latest Beyond the Grid podcast, referring to Mercedes chairman, Ola Kallenius.

"It depends on new regulations going forward," he added, having revealed that the company is looking to supply "between two and three" teams. "Are they rather simple or not? What is it we believe we can learn by supplying more teams whilst at the same time needing to lock in some designs earlier?"

Pointing out that in supplying only Aston Martin, Honda merely takes a handful of engines to Australia for the season opener, Mercedes is looking at taking sixteen.

"That means longer lead times, longer production cycles," says Wolff. "So, considering all of that, going forward, it's not going to be four (teams) anymore."

Since the introduction of the hybrid era in 2014, Mercedes has powered cars to victory in 140 of the 252 races (55.6%), compared to Honda (72 wins, 28.6%), Ferrari (24 wins, 9.5%) and Renault (16 wins, 6.3%).

Between 2014 and 2021 Mercedes won eight consecutive constructors' titles, though for the last two years it has had to look on as McLaren used its power units to claim the title.

Hywel Thomas, MD of Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains, believes that supplying as many as four teams has its benefits but that there are also negatives.

"We've shown in the past that having more than one team means you're getting more data, you're getting more information, you're covering more kilometres," he says. "Just because you've got all those cars, you've got four times the engineers all sitting around telling you 'no, you can do this better, you can do this more this way', and that is very, very beneficial to have all that coming at you.

"It doesn't always feel like it," he admits, "but it definitely is in terms of making a great product.

"But the flip of that is we've got to make a lot of hardware," he continues. "And we have got to make a few decisions earlier.

"I'm not sure, making those decisions earlier really hurts you sometimes because you can run things a bit too close to the wind, I think. That is the flip.

"I'm not even sure whether the right place is one team, two teams, three teams, four teams... I'm not sure. There's definitely a sweet spot in there somewhere and I think it's probably nearer four than one."

LATEST NEWS

more news >

LATEST IMAGES

galleries >

Click to go to the main galleries section

READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by Superbird70, 6 hours ago

"@West York, I would normally agree except that maybe Mercedes is tired of coming in second best to McLaren, and dropping them would force a redesign of the car if they were strong out of the gate next year."

Rating: Positive (1) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

2. Posted by ffracer, 7 hours ago

"This makes total sense. With all the R&D involved and all the upfront costs of preparing and supplying certain teams, the current reliable most efficient power unit is one of the most expensive components on the car. With all the new manufacturers coming in, customerteamsaredwindling and AMG Mercedes wants to justify incredible costs with long-term commitment from teams. Aston Martin F1 was a good paying customer team that left. Did another team give AMG Mercedes notice? As Toto explained, the number closer to 4 teams works...."

Rating: Neutral (0) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

3. Posted by West York, 12/12/2025 16:16

"The strongest are probably the ones who are pushing the deployment and development in the right direction and as such are the one's to keep, as it will benefit Mercedes in the long term. "

Rating: Positive (1) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

4. Posted by Superbird70, 12/12/2025 14:45

"They will drop whomever is strongest out of the gate next year."

Rating: Neutral (0) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

Mercedes to reduce number of teams it supplies

LATEST NEWS

RELATED ARTICLES

LATEST IMAGES

POST A COMMENT

Post your comment

READERS COMMENTS

Share this page