Formula 1’s 10 best engines

Renault V10

Renault was an established name in Formula 1 years before it powered Nigel Mansell to his first Drivers’ Championship in 1992, with the company's V10 motor slotted in the back of the Williams FW14B. It would become an iconic combination of cutting-edge Williams technology, Camel livery and V10 wail, driven by a Midlander best remembered by his thickset moustache. 

After a difficult spell at Ferrari left him considering retirement, Williams came to the rescue, signing Mansell to return for the 1991 season. The FW14 immediately showed promise with Mansell winning five of the calendar's 16 races, but the unreliability of his car's pioneering semi-automatic gearbox held him back. 

The FW14B would pick up where its predecessor left off, with an armoury of technology that included a more robust semi-automatic transmission, active suspension, traction control and, for a brief period, anti-lock brakes. Mansell won five races in a row at the start of the 1992 season and was so dominant past the halfway stage he was crowned Champion with five rounds left to race.

But the unsung hero was Renault's RS4 67-degree, 3.5-litre V10, which not only punched out a mighty 760PS (559kW) at 13,000rpm, but was a packaging delight and, more importantly, did it all reliably, with a spine-tingling roar permanently etched into F1 fans' grey matter. The RS4 set the tone for the durability expected of a modern F1 engine. 

Ferrari's Flat 12

Technically, Ferrari’s flat-12 is not a ‘boxer’ engine. Because? Engage geek mode: its Tipo 015 motor's opposing connecting rods use the same crank pins and move in the same direction with each stroke, rather than having the dedicated crank pins and opposing movement of a true 'boxer’… We’ll keep the pedants happy and christen it a flat-12 hereon.

Ferrari probably isn't too bothered what we call it, because its legendary flat-12 powered 312T is the most successful design in F1 history. The car won three Drivers' and four Constructors' Championships between 1975-1980. The flat-12 was the perfect engine for the era, giving Ferrari's charger a low centre of gravity while giving the air rushing over its body clear access to the massive downforce-creating wing at the back.

The Tipo 015 pumped 500PS (368kW) with a guttural roar that makes the current F1 flock sound depressingly anodyne. The flat-12's tricky packaging (it was very wide) was incompatible with modern aerodynamics, eventually rendering it obsolete, but the legend lives on in road cars like the 512BB and Testarossa. Cars we won’t be forgetting in a hurry.

Mercedes V6 Hybrid

Let's go out on a limb and say the V6-hybrid era is probably not the most loved by F1 fans. The tech is crazy, the power ridiculous, and the torque unfathomable, but the fact is the cars sound terribly dull by the sky-high standards of Formula 1. 

But the engineering is mind-blowing. In use since 2014, Mercedes’ power unit combines a turbocharged V6 with kinetic and heat-energy recovery systems to deliver a staggering 1,000PS (735kW) from a 1.6-litre capacity at a jet engine-rivalling 15,000rpm. And does it reliably at 200mph under G forces that would leave us mere mortals with permanent stoops. 

In various iterations, the motor carried Lewis Hamilton to six Drivers’ Championships and Mercedes to an unprecedented eight consecutive Constructors' Championships. But it was also a commercial success, supplied to teams such as Williams, Lotus, Manor Racing, Force India (and its spinoffs) and Aston Martin. Its most recent triumph came last year as the Mercedes powerplant carried McLaren to the 2024 Constructors' Championship.

Even Mercedes probably didn't fully appreciate the engineering mountain its V6 climbed until it attempted to convert the motor for road use in the AMG One hypercar. A project plagued with development issues it never truly recovered from. 

TAG Porsche Turbo

Porsche and F1 sound like a match made in heaven because Stuttgart has carved a niche building durable performance cars that don't need the kid-glove handling of a temperamental supercar. Ron Dennis made this obvious connection in 1984 as he searched for an engine to power his McLaren MP4/2, replacing Cosworth's ageing DFV – a smart idea as it powered most of the F1 field then.

TAG Electronics financed the project while Porsche and legendary engine builder Hans Mezger designed and built a 90-degree turbocharged V6 that thumped out 811PS (596kW), a useful ten per cent more than any rivals.  

The engine was first used in anger at the 1983 Dutch Grand Prix at the insistence of Niki Lauda for real-world testing ahead of the 1984 campaign. Immediately rewarding Lauda's diligence, McLaren dominated in '84, winning 12 out of 16 rounds. Lauda later reflected: "The McLaren-TAGs were so competitive that the 1984 Drivers' Title became a private matter between Alain Prost and me." Now, for a few million, Lanzante will sell you a classic 911 with the very same engine. 

Cosworth DFV

Fact fans will inform you that the 'DFV' in Cosworth DFV stands for Double Four Valve, but to everyone else it is simply synonymous with an engine that's dominance of F1 was unprecedented from the late 1960s to the early 1980s. 

The DFV was made by fusing two FVA four-cylinder motors at a 90-degree angle to end up with a V8 capable of producing up to 537PS (395kW) at 11,000rpm. And it wasn't just the engine specs that impressed, it was also very reliable and its compact size was perfect for the F1 car's tight packaging, allowing for ground effect aero that wouldn't be possible in a rival unit like a Ferrari flat-12.

Its first use in the field came at the 1967 Dutch Grand Prix, taking Graham Hill's Lotus 49 to pole position before the Englishman's team mate, Jim Clark, won the race. The following year, Graham Hill won the Drivers’ Championship and led Lotus to the Constructors’ Title. In total, the DFV took 155 wins from 262 starts between 1967 and 1985. It's easier to mention the teams that didn't use a DFV (Ferrari, Alfa Romeo, Renault, BRM and Matra) than it is to list the ones that did.

BRM H16

The best engines in F1 don't necessarily have to be the most competitive, and it's in this spirit we introduce the BRM H16. A 16-cylinder wonder that sounds about as far removed from a modern F1 engine as it’s possible to be.

Rules for the 1966 season stipulated that a car could be either 1.5 litres and supercharged or 3.0-litres naturally-aspirated, so to comply, BRM went for what seemed like the pragmatic approach – simply fusing two of its naturally aspirated 1.5-litre V8s together to build the H16. While the theory was delightfully simple, getting it to work in practice was an engineering horror show.  Not only did the engine suffer serious vibration issues, sticking two motors together meant you had two cooling, fuel, and ignition systems, doubling the risk of a failure.

And they did. The car would retire from 30 of the 40 races it entered. Criminally, it wasn't even that quick, the power was good – at 400PS (294kW) – but not good enough to offset the hulk of an engine. Jackie Stewart delivered the knockout punch, reporting: "It was unnecessarily large, used more fuel, carried more oil and needed more water – all of which added weight and diminished the vehicle's agility". Suboptimal.   

Renault RS V8

Renault had already developed an amazing reputation for building Championship-winning V10 engines when it turned its hand to creating a V8 for its R26 F1 car. 

While a V8 should develop less power than a same-spec V10 on paper, the lower cylinder count needed less cooling, allowing the V8 to have smaller radiators and better aerodynamics. And the good news didn’t end there. The V8's improved efficiency allowed for a smaller fuel tank and easier packaging, while Renault's seven-speed titanium gearbox – rather than the six-speeder in rivals – was custom-made for the engine's power curve.

In 2006, the 90-degree 2.4-litre RS26 was one of Formula 1's fastest revving engines, screaming to a brain-cell boggling 20,500rpm. It joined forces with Renault's innovative ‘mass damper’ – a harmonic balancer like the counterweights in an earthquake-proof tower block aiding stability through bends, powering Fernando Alonso to a second Drivers' Championship.

BMW M12 1.5 Turbo

BMW's M12 engine sounds humble on paper – a 1.5-litre turbocharged inline four-cylinder should belong in a Fiesta, not a Formula 1 car. In reality, it was more explosive than a pariah states nuclear arsenal, with around 1,500PS (1,100kW) this was the most powerful F1 engine ever built. No one knows precisely the M12's true specs because there wasn't a dyno in the land strong enough to test the figure during its development in 1982. 

What we do know is that the M12 replaced the DFV in Nelson Piquet's Brabham, carrying him to his second World Championship in 1983 behind the wheel of his BT52 race car. It is also the fastest recorded turbocharged F1 car, Gerhard Berger's Benetton B186 hitting 219mph with an M12 engine at the Italian Grand Prix in 1986.

The mechanical simplicity of using four cylinders meant the M12 needed less cooling than its six-cylinder rivals, leading to smaller radiator side pods and a more aerodynamic shape, though weaknesses included poor reliability and high fuel consumption.

Honda RA168E McLaren

Honda's RA16 was an 80-degree V6 that brought the Japanese manufacturer into F1's turbocharged era in 1983, winning its first race – the 1984 Dallas Grand Prix – in the hands of Keke Rosberg. 

But the engine's most dominant era came in 1988 under the engine cover of the McLaren MP4/4, which at the time boasted a dream driver line-up of double World Champion Alain Prost and soon-to-be Champion Ayrton Senna. In the hands of F1 gods, the McLaren – and its 80-degree, 695PS (511kW) 1.5-litre turbocharged V6 RA168E engine – claimed 15 poles and 15 wins from 16 races, a remarkable feat giving the team three times more points than closest rival Ferrari by the end of the season.

Even more remarkable was that the rules deliberately favoured naturally-aspirated cars with a 150-litre fuel limit and a 2.5 Bar boost pressure restriction. However, McLaren used that to its advantage, building an all-new car for the '88 season while the other teams, focused on developing their 1989 car, brought a variation of the previous year's machine. 

BMW E41/4 V10

BMW's E41/4 V10 motor might be better judged for what it did for road cars than racing cars. BMW already had plenty of success in F1 with its turbocharged four-cylinders when, for the 2000 season, it began engine building for the first time since 1998. V10S (with a 3.0-litre maximum displacement) returned to the sport, and the German company signed a contract to supply Williams for that season. 

Christened the E41/4, the result was a 3.0-litre 72-degree V10 good for up to 810PS (604kW) at 17,500rpm. Fitted to Jenson Button and Ralph Schumacher's FW22 race cars, BMW had the best result for a new engine in 30 years of racing, when Schumacher finished third on the car's maiden outing at the Melbourne season-opener.

The team would eventually finish third in the Constructors’ Championship – a strong showing for a car using a new engine. Perhaps more importantly for petrolheads, BMW's association with V10s would manifest itself in the E60 M5, which had a naturally-aspirated 5.0-litre V10 that would become one of the best engines ever fitted to a saloon car. And one of the least reliable.

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Images courtesy of Getty Images.