Mercedes' High Performance Powertrains division has won a rare engineering award for using Formula 1 technology in the Mercedes-AMG ONE hypercar. A road car, the design is fitted with a 1.6L V6 turbocharged engine, with electric motors and batteries churning out 1,048 bhp, close to what Lewis Hamilton and George Russell are armed with in the Mercedes F1 team. The hypercar project was created to transfer the turbo-hybrid technology used in F1 since 2014 to the road car market, with Mercedes HPP scooping the Dewar Trophy for their efforts. Awarded by the Royal Automobile Club, it is named after Sir James Dewar MP who donated the trophy in the early 20th Century. It is not an annual trophy, with it being only handed out "in recognition of an outstanding British technical achievement in the automotive year in the preceding field". It is the third time Mercedes HPP have won the award. They achieved the accolade in 2009 for the addition of the Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) into F1 and again in 2014 for their dominant power unit in the first year of F1's turbo-hybrid regulations. Previous winners include the likes of Jaguar, JCB, Lotus, Dunlop and McLaren.
Mercedes 'honoured' by recognition for 'huge challenge'
"Presenting the Dewar Trophy to Mercedes-AMG High Performance Powertrains was a unanimous decision," explained Dewar Technical Committee chairman Ben Cussons. "Bringing the AMG ONE to production is a remarkable achievement and with the power units being made in Northamptonshire and the cars being assembled in Coventry, it is a great story for British engineering." As for Mercedes HPP, advanced technology director Adam Allsopp admitted to the challenge faced in transferring F1 technology for the road. "Receiving the Dewar Trophy is a tremendous honour for everyone involved in developing the Mercedes-AMG ONE," he said. "It [gives] owners the opportunity to get a little taste of what has helped make Mercedes so successful in F1 during the hybrid era. "Making it road legal without losing that F1 DNA was a huge challenge, but one we fully embraced - we're very excited to have made it a reality."
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