Mercedes believes Formula 1 will have to go electric eventually despite huge gains made with hybrid technology.
The German manufacturer has dominated the sport since the current V6 turbo hybrid era began in 2014, winning every championship with 89 wins from 121 races.
That change from the shouty V8’s that proceeded them is still derided by many today, however, Mercedes director of commercial engineering, Geoff Willis, supports the gradual move F1 has made to electrification.
“We first looked, in 2009 I think it was, at energy recovery with the KERS system, with a small amount of energy recovery, a small battery and a motor-generator that recovered energy under braking and deployed it when the driver went,” he explained in a Mercedes Deep Dive YouTube video.
“This was a foot in the water just to try and understand the technology and it wasn’t quite a bit enough change.
“With the change for the full turbo hybrid cars, we got the whole package. We got efficiency, we got an enormous step with power, we got a huge reduction in fuel consumption and we showed that this technology, that was sort of laboratory level technology, we could put it in a racing environment.”
Looking ahead, F1 is already considering going even further with two-stroke engines, more energy regeneration and synthetic fuel.
However, Mercedes is also betting on all-electric having joined Formula E from Season 6 and it is that path Willis thinks F1 will also ultimately take.
“If you asked me the question ‘Where are we going long-term with Formula 1 technology?’ you can see in the distance that we probably have to be fully electric, but we want to be very, very competitive fully electric,” he explained.
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“I think we’ve got to be thinking about recovering energy on front wheels and rear wheels, deploying energy on four-wheels as well and really pushing the next level of energy management.”
Currently, Formula E still has a lot of work to do to catch F1, with races limited to 45 minutes plus one lap at power levels of 250kw (335hp) compared to F1 with 300km races and power at over 745kw (1000hp).
Given the progress made in just six years though, by the end of the decade, who knows.