Formula E champions Mercedes announced on Wednesday that it will say goodbye from the all-electric series at the end of the 2022 season to concentrate on Formula One. It also said that they are exploring options to keep the team in the series, including a potential sale to new owners.
The announcement comes only three days after Dutch driver Nyck de Vries won the Formula E world championship title after finishing eighth in the season’s final race in Berlin. Mercedes also won the teams’ title after Belgium’s Stoffel Vandoorne finished in third place.
“Mercedes-Benz today announced that it will conclude its ABB FIA Formula E success story as a team entrant and manufacturer at the end of Season 8, in August 2022,” said the car manufacturer in a statement.
“Moving forward, the company will concentrate its works motorsport activities on Formula 1, reinforcing the sport’s status as the fastest laboratory for developing and proving sustainable and scalable future performance technologies.”
Mercedes follows the footsteps of Audi and BMW exiting Formula E at the end of this year. The company also said that it will concentrate its works motorsport activities on Formula 1.
“The brand has deliberately chosen to shift resources for this accelerated ramp-up of electrification, including the development of three electric-only architectures to be launched in 2025. Therefore, Mercedes will reallocate resource away from its ABB FIA Formula E World Championship programme and towards applying the lessons learned in competition to product development in series.”