Mercedes Grand Prix

On 16 November 2009, Mercedes bought a majority stake of 75.1% in the championship winning Brawn GP team of Ross Brawn. The German car maker swiftly decided to rename the team to Mercedes GP, seeing it return as an entity of its own, after the Mercedes Benz team competed until 1956 and after Mercedes was in F1 together with McLaren.

The team is essentially the same as Brawn GP, with Ross Brawn being the team principal and Nick Fry the CEO since the team was still the Honda Racing F1 works team. The new German ownership meanwhile meant that German talent Nico Rosberg was contracted, and when Jenson Button decided to move to McLaren, the team lured Michael Schumacher away from Ferrari. The Scuderia had no car available and Schumacher was eager to make a racing comeback, especially when paired to Ross Brawn, an ever successful pairing.

Mercedes GP Petronas finished 2010 in fourth place in the Formula One Constructors’ Championship, overall a disappointing performance after the Brawn of 2009 blew everyone out of the water. The car's short wheelbase was pointed as one of the culprits, but yet again in 2011 the Mercedes GP W02 proved to have a similar short wheelbase, again failing to live up to its promise.

At the beginning of 2011, Bob Bell joined the team as technical director, mainly targeting the development of the 2012 car. He left Lotus Renault after becoming unhappy with the new management at Enstone. After then emerging with disappointing performances of the 2011 car, Brawn went on to find more technical members, and the team consequently signed Aldo Costa (who left Ferrari after being Technical Director there) and Geoffry Willis.

Cars

All Formula One cars of Mercedes Grand Prix

Car designation	Race years
Mercedes GP W01	2010
Mercedes GP W02	2011
Mercedes AMG F1 03	2012