Ferrari engines have won the most Formula 1 races but Mercedes are gaining rapidly

Ferrari are the most successful engine manufacturer in Formula 1 history, powering a total of 249 victories.

On average, more than one in five rounds held since the world championship began 1950 were won by a Ferrari-powered car.

But its crown is in danger of slipping. No one has won a race with a Ferrari power unit for more than 12 months.

Since the last Ferrari-powered win – Carlos Sainz Jnr’s victory in last year’s Mexican Grand Prix – their rivals Mercedes have claimed 18 victories. As a result, having once trailed well over 100 wins behind Ferrari, Mercedes are now just 10 wins away from matching their all-time record:

*Up to and including the 2025 Brazilian Grand Prix

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Ferrari is the only team to have competed in every round of the world championship and has always designed and built its own engines. After scoring their first win in 1951 Ferrari engines swiftly became the most successful in the sport.

John Surtees, Ferrari, Watkins Glen, 1963
Ferrari was previously F1’s top engine builder in the sixties

However the arrival of the Ford-Cosworth DFV in 1967 soon changed that. The engine and its derivatives powered multiple teams and dominated F1 for many years.

In 1968 Ferrari claimed the only win not powered by the Ford-Cosworth. In 1969 the blue oval’s engines won every race, a feat they repeated four years later. Even when Ferrari returned to championship success in the mid-seventies, Ford-Cosworth engines routinely won more races each year, powering the likes of Lotus, McLaren and Tyrrell.

The ascent of turbo power in the early eighties finally broke Ford-Cosworth’s grip on the sport. By that time they had almost twice as many wins as Ferrari, and it took two decades for the Scuderia to regain its crown.

Finally when Michael Schumacher won the United States Grand Prix in 2004, Ferrari claimed its 177th victory which put it back at the top of the table, where it has remained ever since.

At that time, Mercedes engines had won 42 races. They had dominated their brief appearance in F1 as a works team in the fifties and enjoyed success after teaming up with McLaren from 1995. But their best days lay ahead.

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Michael Schumacher, Ferrari, Indianapolis, 2004
Schumacher scored Ferrari’s record-breaking 177th win

After taking over Brawn (which won the 2009 title with Mercedes power) the three-pointed star returned as a factory team. They dominated the first years of the V6 hybrid turbo engine formula, winning 113 races in just eight years.

From 2021 they also began supplying McLaren again. While Mercedes never got to grips with the post-2022 technical regulations, McLaren did, and have been the team to beat this year. Of the 18 Mercedes-powered wins since the last Ferrari victory, McLaren have scored 15.

With only three grands prix left, Mercedes cannot overtake Ferrari this year. Whether they manage to in 2026 will be decided by how well F1’s two most successful engine builders tackle next year’s new regulations – and whether the likes of Honda, Audi or Red Bull-Ford can outdo them.

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