Wolff Puts Mercedes’ Customer Teams on Notice for Post‑2030 Shake‑Up

In the stillness after a long season, with dynos whining in Brixworth and mechanics rolling flight cases down empty factory corridors, Mercedes has lit the fuse under the next chapter of F1’s power-unit politics. Toto Wolff has confirmed that the Silver Arrows plan to trim their customer roster in the next engine cycle – a move that, given current contracts, points squarely at life after 2030.

Right now Mercedes is Formula 1’s busiest power-unit supplier. From 2026 the German marque will power its own works team plus McLaren, Williams and new arrival Alpine, meaning eight of the 22 cars on the grid will carry Mercedes hardware, as outlined by RaceFans, Motorsport Week and AutoHebdo. All three customer teams have deals running through to the end of 2030, F1 Chronicle notes, locking in the current landscape for the first phase of the new 2026 hybrid era.

But on Formula 1’s official Beyond the Grid podcast, Wolff made clear that the next phase – the cycle after those deals expire – will look very different.

“Our current mindset is, also discussing with Ola, that we will reduce the amount of teams we’re going to supply in the next cycle.”

— Toto Wolff, speaking to Formula 1’s Beyond the Grid podcast (via RaceFans and Motorsport Week)

Pressed on what that future might look like, Wolff didn’t mince words.

He said the optimum number of teams is likely to be “between two and three, I guess”… “So [considering] all of that, going forward, it’s not going to be four anymore.”

— Toto Wolff, via RacingNews365 and GPblog

This isn’t an undercut into Turn 1; it’s a long-game play shaped by 2026’s radical power-unit rules. As Sportskeeda details, the next-generation engines will run a roughly 50–50 split between combustion and electrical power, with far more complex energy recovery and deployment. With McLaren, Williams and Alpine all locked in, Mercedes must build and ship 16 complete power units for the 2026 opener in Australia – “longer lead times, longer production cycles,” as Wolff put it, compared to Honda’s far lighter burden supplying only Aston Martin.

That workload brings benefits. Hywel Thomas, managing director of Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains, told Formula 1’s channel that having multiple teams means four times the engineers and four times the data, a point echoed in F1 Chronicle and GPblog coverage. But he also acknowledged the flip side: vast quantities of hardware, earlier design freezes and ever-tighter margins for error.

Layered over the engineering reality is something more human: pride. AutoHebdo notes that for the second consecutive year McLaren, a customer team, has outscored the Mercedes works squad in the constructors’ championship, nearly doubling the Silver Arrows’ points haul in 2025. The sight of papaya cars, Mercedes power humming beneath their bodywork, streaking away from the factory team is the kind of image that lingers in a competitor’s mind.

Wolff has not named which of McLaren, Williams or Alpine might be left without a Mercedes supply when the current deals expire, and there is no indication of any early termination before 2030. For now, all three remain central to Mercedes’ strategy – and, as Motorsport Week points out, all three stand to benefit if early paddock whispers of Mercedes being 2026 power-unit “favourites” prove accurate.

But by drawing a line in the sand now, Wolff has started a different sort of DRS train – one of phone calls, contingency plans and quiet conversations with rival manufacturers. Somewhere beyond 2030, at least one of Mercedes’ current customers will be powered by something new. When the lights go out on that next era, the real story won’t just be who leads into Turn 1, but who chose the right partner in this looming game of engine musical chairs.