Just who are the richest people in F1 and what are they worth?
It’s said that the fastest way to make a small fortune in motor racing is to start off with a large one – but these individuals are determined to disprove that…
Formula 1 consumes money like no other motor racing category – and very few other sports – on the planet. The sums involved are vast and, to pass through these barriers to entry, you need access to some serious cash.
As with thoroughbred horse racing’s standing as the ‘sport of kings’, the prestige and status of F1 attracts some wealthy people. Take, for instance, the Claro sticker on the rear wing of the Red Bull. Claro is the South American arm of America Movil, a Forbes Global 2000 telecoms group which employs almost 200,000 staff, with a head office in Mexico City and reported revenues north of $50billion. Its chairman, Carlos Slim Helu, has a net worth of $62.8billion (according to Forbes) and is the world’s 16th richest man.
He – along with son Carlos Slim Domit – is a long-term backer of Red Bull driver Sergio Pérez via their Telmex telecoms company, which sponsored Pérez’s rise through the junior ranks and into F1. In turn, the Claro sticker Pérez brings to Red Bull is attached to a car whose owners include the world’s 56th richest man.
Such capital reserves are the (at times shaky) foundations upon which the F1 ecosystem rests.
WHO IS THE RICHEST TEAM OWNER IN F1?
Dietrich Mateschitz is the co-founder, 49% owner and managing director of Red Bull, the energy drinks company which owns Red Bull Racing and Alphatauri. So enamoured of Formula 1 is the 76-year-old Austrian that he bought not one but two teams in the 2000s, first Jaguar and then Minardi.
Mateschitz was a travelling toothpaste salesman. His lightbulb moment came in Thailand, where he came across a drink called Krating Daeng (which translates as ‘red bull’) and found it helped cure his jetlag. Mateschitz then approached its originator, Chaleo Yoovidhya, and together they launched a ‘westernised’ version called Red Bull in 1987, which quickly became the global market leader in the emergent – and very lucrative – energy drink market.
Red Bull achieved that position by having plenty of product available to fulfil demand stimulated by its sponsorship of athletes in extreme sports. Gerhard Berger was the first
such beneficiary in F1, and later Red Bull would own 60% of the Sauber F1 team – until a falling out with Peter Sauber over selecting Kimi Räikkönen rather than Enrique Bernoldi, who Mateschitz believed was a hotter prospect. Well, being a high-net-worth individual doesn’t make you right all the time…
In November 2004, Mateschitz bought the Jaguar Racing team for one pound from Ford, and a year later – with Berger as partner – purchased the Minardi team from Paul Stoddart, renaming it Scuderia Toro Rosso.
Red Bull Racing went on to win the world championship four times with Sebastian Vettel. Toro Rosso, which acts as Red Bull’s funnel for young talent and has since been renamed Alphatauri to promote Red Bull’s fashion brand, has won two grands prix in its own right.
Impressive though those statistics are, they have recently been surpassed by Mercedes – whose co-owner Sir James Ratcliffe is worth $17.3bn according to Forbes. The UK’S richest person until he moved to Monaco, Ratcliffe built the Ineos petrochemicals empire and has recently made a number of big investments in sport.
WHO IS THE RICHEST DRIVER IN F1?
The wealthiest active driver in F1 is Sir Lewis Hamilton. The seven-time world champion commands a salary of around $55million per annum, and his net worth is understood to be between $300-$500million. Endorsement deals with Mercedes, Tommy Hilfiger, Monster Energy, Bose, Puma, IWC, Sony, Gran Turismo and MV Agusta bolster his salary.
Michael Schumacher, the man with whom Hamilton is level in terms of world championship wins, is believed to be worth $600-800million. Forbes twice listed him as its highest-paid athlete, in 1999 and 2000, and claims his annual earnings at Ferrari peaked at $80million per annum.
WHO IS THE RICHEST RACE PROMOTER IN F1?
In the era of races which act as state publicity vehicles, those with the wherewithal to stage or facilitate a grand prix in their country occupy an entirely different stratosphere of wealth. One such is Singapore property and hotel tycoon Ong Beng Seng, who was instrumental in his city attracting a race to his streets. Circuit of The Americas investor John Dejoria, co-founder of Paul Mitchell hair products, is also worth several billion dollars. Prince Albert of Monaco, whose Principality hosts the most famous race on the schedule, is also a member of the billionaire club.
And then there are Bahrain and Abu Dhabi, whose grands prix are effectively run by the royal families of the kingdoms. The Bahrain royal family’s personal wealth is understood to be in excess of $4billion; Crown Prince Salman is a highly visible supporter of the annual race and F1 in general. He is also a major investor in Mclaren via Mumtalakat, the sovereign wealth fund of the Gulf island state. Its assets are believed to be worth $17billion.
The emir of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khalifa, controls the investment authority which, at $875billion in assets, is the largest amount managed by a head of state. His family’s fortune is also estimated at $150billion.
F1’s newest addition to the calendar, the Miami Grand Prix, adds more wealth to the F1 ‘family’. Stephen M Ross, a real estate developer whose RSE Ventures firm was in the running to buy Formula 1 before Liberty Media closed the deal, is also the owner of the Miami Dolphins NFL team whose stadium campus will host the new race. He has a personal net worth of over $7billion.
HOW RICH ARE FORMULA 1’S OWNERS?
Liberty Media bought Formula 1 Group from private equity firm CVC for $4.6billion in 2017. Liberty is controlled by John C Malone, a US billionaire who is understood to be the largest private landowner in America. His net worth, according to Forbes, is $7.8billion.
Liberty Media recently disclosed – in a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission – that the compensation of its CEO, Greg Maffei, had risen to $47.1million in 2020, up from $44million – mainly from stock awards
and options. His base salary was $871,800.
Bernie Ecclestone, the former CEO of the F1 Group, is understood to be worth over $3billion. He remained chairman emeritus of F1 until 2020.
WHO ARE F1’S RICHEST ‘RACING FATHERS’?
Aston Martin driver Lance Stroll effectively drives for his father, Lawrence, whose net worth Forbes states at $3.2billion. In early 2020, Stroll led a $235million buyout of the Aston Martin car company and renamed his Formula 1 team (which he’d bought in the summer of 2018 for over $100million) to reflect this. He is a compulsive dealmaker, as evinced by the number of sponsors and partners which have joined the Aston Martin F1 team’s roster already.
Stroll Sr is the mastermind behind the 2011 IPO of fashion brand Michael Kors. He sold his final shares in the company in 2014. Before then, he’d brought clothing brands Pierre Cardin and Ralph Lauren to Canada and, along with Hong Kong investor Silas Chou, invested in Tommy
Hilfiger and then similarly developed the Michael Kors brand. Stroll is a renowned collector of Ferraris and famously purchased a 275 GTB/4 Spider for a record $27.5million in 2013.
Haas F1 driver Nikita Mazepin’s father, Dmitry, is the majority shareholder and chairman of the board of Uralchem Integrated Chemicals Company. He made the Forbes’ billionaires list in 2014 and 2015, having bought into the $5billion Uralkali company – the world’s largest potash producer – in 2013. He previously worked with petrochemical companies TNK and Sibur and first formed his own company in 2004, which has since been merged into Uralchem.
Mazepin also made a bid to take over what was then known as the Force India F1 team in 2018 but lost out to Stroll. Uralkali stickers now adorn the Haas cars, and it is known that Gene Haas is looking for buyers for the team. Whether Mazepin will put in a bid is yet to be seen.
Williams driver Nicholas Latifi’s father Michael is the owner, chairman and CEO of Sofina Foods. Via an investment company he also controls, he put $200million into Mclaren Group in 2018.
Latifi Sr left his native Iran for Canada at the age of 15, and he became a refugee there after the Shah was overthrown in 1979. He put his business degree together with his engineering background to start a food processing company in Toronto called Vienna Meat products, which grew into Sofina Foods, which has revenues of $2billion. Latifi has a well-documented penchant for Ferraris and owns an ex-michael Schumacher F2004 and an ex-kimi Räikkönen F2007.
The Williams F1 team’s $180million acquisition by US investment company Dorilton Capital also carries the scent of family money, though its ultimate ownership structure is unclear.
A key figure is James Matthews, whose father is a property magnate with a portfolio which includes the Eden Rock resort. Like his father (a regular in saloon cars in the 1970s), Matthews raced, winning the 1994 British Formula Renault title before becoming a city trader and hedge fund manager. He has two children but, since neither of them are old enough to attend school yet, it’s too soon to say whether they will follow their father into motor racing…