Valtteri Bottas drove for the Mercedes-AMG Formula One team in five seasons, and now he has a hypercar powered by the engine which helped him win 10 Grands Prix.
Formula One star Valtteri Bottas has taken delivery of his Mercedes-AMG One – a $2.75 million hypercar powered by an engine derived from the Finnish driver’s former racing car.
The Mercedes-AMG One is powered by a 782kW 1.6-litre turbocharged V6 engine and hybrid system from the company’s championship-winning Formula One race cars, which Bottas raced between 2017 and 2021 – taking victory in 10 races, which included the 2019 Australian Grand Prix.
In a post uploaded to social media platform Instagram, Bottas – who now drives for the Alfa Romeo Formula One team and spent his off-season Down Under with South Australian girlfriend, Tiffany Cromwell, a professional cyclist – showed off his metallic blue hypercar, reflecting the colours of the Finnish flag and his racing helmet.
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Just 275 examples of the AMG One are due to be built, and Bottas is one of at least three Formula One stars to order the hypercar – alongside seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton and now-retired 2016 title winner Nico Rosberg (who Bottas replaced at Mercedes F1 in 2017).
While the Mercedes-AMG One is celebrated as a Formula One car with a numberplate – having claimed a new lap record for production cars at the Nurburgring – its development faced numerous setbacks since the Project One concept was unveiled in 2017.
As previously reported, Mercedes-Benz faced an uphill battle in trying to produce a road-legal vehicle powered by a Formula One car’s engine – a task which CEO Ola Källenius joked must have been approved when the company’s bosses were “drunk”.
After a five-year gestation period, the One entered production in August 2022 – with eight of the 275 examples expected to be bound for Australian owners, despite not being road-legal in Australia due to the car’s left-hand-drive layout.
In May 2023, one example of the Mercedes-AMG One burnt down while being transported in a car trailer in the UK, resulting in both the hypercar and the trailer it was being transported in were destroyed as a result of the fire.
According to reports at the time by The Sun, Mercedes-Benz was investigating the fire, though it was suggested the car’s battery pack – which powers its hybrid system – was the source of the blaze given the engine was off at the time
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