‘Marginal gains and reliability matter everywhere’: How a key SAP upgrade is helping Mercedes soar to Formula 1 triumph in 2026 | Daily Reports Online
As the 2026 Formula 1 season draws to a close, Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 is cruising to glory in both the driver’s and constructor’s world championships.
But behind its quest for pure speed is a tech stack which constantly evolves throughout the year, with the team supported by a host of partners to make sure it stays ahead of the competition.
SAP is one of the team’s key providers, and following a key upgrade, we spoke to Dean Corcoran, Head of ERP, IT at Mercedes-AMG F1 Team, to find out more about how it is helping get the title push over the line.
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It’s obviously been a hugely successful season for Mercedes F1 so far. What role has your tech stack and partners such as SAP played in that?
On-track success is ultimately delivered by the collective capability of the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team to design, build, operate and develop the car. Underpinning all of that is the technology stack that enables our people to do their jobs effectively.
SAP is a key enabler of Team performance. It is the system of record across our cost, procurement, manufacturing and operational processes, providing the foundational data that supports many of the decisions we make across the organisation.
What can you tell us about the upgrade? What benefits will it bring to the team for the rest of the season?
The RISE implementation and upgrade to the latest release of S/4HANA was fundamentally about strengthening the Team’s core enterprise platform, making it more resilient, more performant and allowing us to take advantage of the latest functionality available to us.
Importantly, it also creates the foundation for our future roadmap. It gives us the platform from which we can make greater use of new analytics capabilities and begin paving the way for future AI use cases.
What challenges are involved in upgrading your ERP platform in the middle of the season? How much preparation was involved to ensure it didn’t disrupt your charge for the championships?
Our S/4HANA platform is a business-critical application that touches all aspects of the Team’s operations, so a migration of this scale has to be meticulously planned and executed. Any disruption to the business could have significant consequences, particularly in the middle of a championship campaign.
Our first phase was therefore about understanding exactly where we would see the impact of the migration and upgrade. The second was developing a comprehensive implementation and testing plan, with precise timings and staffing requirements. The final phase was about executing that plan with excellence.
We were extremely well supported by SAP throughout the migration, and that preparation paid off. We were able to move seamlessly onto the new platform with no disruption to the business ahead of the first weekend of racing.
With regards to software updates, how do you ensure your upgrades are processed and programmed effectively?
Within the Team’s IT organisation, we follow a rigorous portfolio, project and change-management approach. That means understanding and evaluating the impact of any change well ahead of implementation.
From there, we develop tailored implementation and testing plans, with clear exit criteria for each phase. Ultimately, disciplined governance matters just as much as technical capability and speed when you are making changes to business-critical systems.
We hear a lot about mid-season upgrades being a huge boost for any team when it comes to new parts, but how much of an impact can software upgrades bring?
A well-planned and well-executed software upgrade should improve an organisation’s ability to deliver value through the processes that software supports.
In the case of an ERP platform, that means being able to execute processes faster without compromising quality, while making more data available more quickly to support decision-making. In an environment like the Team, where speed and quality matter enormously, those improvements can be valuable.
With more attention being paid to data controls than ever before, what impact will the new upgrade have on the Team’s compliance goals?
A modern ERP solution such as SAP RISE PCE needs to support and supplement the controls built into the Team’s business processes, rather than existing separately from them.
With the upgrade to S/4HANA 2025, we are leveraging the latest SAP functionality to provide the best possible insight to the right people at the right time. That helps us make informed decisions while maintaining the robust controls required across the organisation.
Looking forward to the rest of the season, how big an effect can upgrades such as the new SAP delivery give to the Team as you chase both championships?
Marginal gains and reliability matter everywhere when you are trying to win both championships, and our move to RISE and upgrade to S/4HANA 2025 are focused on delivering both.
We are already seeing improved transactional performance on the new platform, giving valuable time back to users across the Team. Alongside that, we are adopting and leveraging some of SAP’s latest functionality across Fiori and analytics, with further capabilities on our roadmap that we believe can deliver additional performance improvements in the future.
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