Motor racing has always been a core part of Mercedes' DNA. Daimler entered the world's first automotive endurance race in 1894 and the Mercedes Silver Arrows team dominated Grand Prix racing in the 1930s. Today, Mercedes is one of the most successful teams in Formula One history, achieving seven consecutive Constructors Championships from 2014 to 2020. More recently 2019, Mercedes made its foray into Formula E electric racing championship.

After winning the driver's and constructor's championship for the 2020/2021 season, Mercedes has made a difficult decision about its future in Formula E. After the 2021/2022 season wraps up in August of next year, Mercedes will retire from Formula E racing to focus on expanding its electric EQ car range with new models like the EQE Sedan.

As the company prepares to become an all-electric brand from 2030, pulling out of Formula E will enable Mercedes to "shift resources for this accelerated ramp-up of electrification." Mercedes will need these extra resources to launch three dedicated electric architectures in 2025 and will use its experience in Formula E racing to improve its electric road cars. BMW and Audi have also retired from Formula E and Volkswagen has quit motorsport for altogether to pour more resources into electric road car development. Historically, only horrible accidents have made Mercedes withdraw from motorsport like the 1955 Le Mans disaster, which led to Mercedes retiring from motorsport altogether until 1987.

While Mercedes is switching its priorities to electric road car development, it isn't completely abandoning its motorsport activities as the successful Mercedes-AMG team will continue to compete in Formula 1 for the foreseeable future.

"At Mercedes-Benz, we have committed ourselves to fighting climate change at full force in this decade. This demands the accelerated transformation of our company, products and services towards an emission-free and software-driven future, and to achieve this, we must give full focus to our core activities," said Markus Schafer, Chief Operating Officer at Mercedes.

"In motorsport, Formula E has been a good driver for proving our expertise and establishing our Mercedes-EQ brand, but in future we will keep pushing technological progress - especially on the electric drive side - focusing on Formula 1. It is the arena where we constantly test our technology in the most intense competition the automotive world has to offer - and the three-pointed star hardly shines brighter anywhere else. F1 offers rich potential for technology transfer, as we can see in ongoing projects such as the Vision EQXX, and our team and the entire series will achieve net-zero status by the end of the decade."