Photo: Valtteri Bottas / edited
Few automakers dared to design a street-legal vehicle with a Formula 1 engine. Prior to the Mercedes-AMG One, which is the closest thing to an F1 car for the road ever, the Prancing Horse of Maranello offered the F50.
Introduced in 1995, which is two years early of the automaker's 50th anniversary, the F50 uses a naturally-aspirated V12 derived from the 036 engine of the Ferrari 641. Internally referred to as 130, said powerplant spawned a further derivative for the 333 SP racing car.
Ferrari produced fewer than 350 units, of which 302 were specified in Rosso Corsa. The ONE is rarer still, with Mercedes-AMG planning to make only 275 examples of the breed. One of them was recently delivered to Valtteri Bottas, which – as you are well aware by now – is racing for Alfa Romeo Sauber.
Previously contracted by Merc, The Finn shared the moment on social media with a simple caption: "Worth the wait." He is obviously referring to how long the Stuttgart-based company took from design study to production, as in almost five years. Unveiled at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September 2017, the Project ONE started production as the ONE in August 2022.
The very first example of the breed was delivered in January 2023, a black-painted car with a few blue touches and lots of gray stars on the doors and rear fenders. What makes the ONE as close to a Formula 1 car as possible? For starters, the 1.6-liter V6 enabled Merc's 2014 - 2021 dominance in the turbo hybrid era.
Mercedes hit the ground running with the W05 of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, a car that won 16 races out of 19 in the 2014 season. Valtteri started his Formula 1 career with Williams, a British team who switched to Mercedes power in 2014. Valtteri started winning races in the king of motorized sports in 2017 at the Russian Grand Prix with Mercedes-AMG Petronas. His 10th and final win occurred in 2021 at the Turkish Grand Prix. Not surprising in the least, his most wins in a season were 4 in 2019 with the UK-based Mercedes F1 team.
Speaking of being headquartered in the United Kingdom, the good folks at Mercedes-AMG Petronas manufacture the ONE rather than Mercedes-Benz AG in Germany. Developed in Affalterbach, the superb-looking hypercar gets its engine and four (!!!) electric motors from Brixworth. Final assembly takes place in Coventry, which is the spiritual home of Jaguar Cars.
A plug-in hybrid rather than a self-charging hybrid, the ONE runs two front-mounted electric motors, an MGU-H, and an MGU-K in addition to the 1.6-liter V6. It uses a 7-speed automatic manual instead of a dual-clutch transmission, and the 8.4-kWh battery offers a meager driving range of merely 18.1 kilometers (11 miles).
It's a very powerful and very fast car, though. Max system output is 1,063 ps (1,049 hp), whereas maximum torque isn't even listed because of the drivetrain's complexity. Electronically limited to 352 kilometers per hour (219 miles per hour), the ONE needs 2.9 seconds to reach 100 kilometers per hour (62 miles per hour).
The only stat that matters, however, is 6:30.705 at the Nurburgring with Maro Engel behind the wheel. That's eight seconds faster than the Manthey Racing-modified 991.2 Porsche 911 GT2 RS and nearly 13 seconds faster than the limited-run Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series.
Ferrari produced fewer than 350 units, of which 302 were specified in Rosso Corsa. The ONE is rarer still, with Mercedes-AMG planning to make only 275 examples of the breed. One of them was recently delivered to Valtteri Bottas, which – as you are well aware by now – is racing for Alfa Romeo Sauber.
Previously contracted by Merc, The Finn shared the moment on social media with a simple caption: "Worth the wait." He is obviously referring to how long the Stuttgart-based company took from design study to production, as in almost five years. Unveiled at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September 2017, the Project ONE started production as the ONE in August 2022.
The very first example of the breed was delivered in January 2023, a black-painted car with a few blue touches and lots of gray stars on the doors and rear fenders. What makes the ONE as close to a Formula 1 car as possible? For starters, the 1.6-liter V6 enabled Merc's 2014 - 2021 dominance in the turbo hybrid era.
Mercedes hit the ground running with the W05 of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, a car that won 16 races out of 19 in the 2014 season. Valtteri started his Formula 1 career with Williams, a British team who switched to Mercedes power in 2014. Valtteri started winning races in the king of motorized sports in 2017 at the Russian Grand Prix with Mercedes-AMG Petronas. His 10th and final win occurred in 2021 at the Turkish Grand Prix. Not surprising in the least, his most wins in a season were 4 in 2019 with the UK-based Mercedes F1 team.
Speaking of being headquartered in the United Kingdom, the good folks at Mercedes-AMG Petronas manufacture the ONE rather than Mercedes-Benz AG in Germany. Developed in Affalterbach, the superb-looking hypercar gets its engine and four (!!!) electric motors from Brixworth. Final assembly takes place in Coventry, which is the spiritual home of Jaguar Cars.
A plug-in hybrid rather than a self-charging hybrid, the ONE runs two front-mounted electric motors, an MGU-H, and an MGU-K in addition to the 1.6-liter V6. It uses a 7-speed automatic manual instead of a dual-clutch transmission, and the 8.4-kWh battery offers a meager driving range of merely 18.1 kilometers (11 miles).
It's a very powerful and very fast car, though. Max system output is 1,063 ps (1,049 hp), whereas maximum torque isn't even listed because of the drivetrain's complexity. Electronically limited to 352 kilometers per hour (219 miles per hour), the ONE needs 2.9 seconds to reach 100 kilometers per hour (62 miles per hour).
The only stat that matters, however, is 6:30.705 at the Nurburgring with Maro Engel behind the wheel. That's eight seconds faster than the Manthey Racing-modified 991.2 Porsche 911 GT2 RS and nearly 13 seconds faster than the limited-run Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series.
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