Toto Wolff is in final negotiations to offload a portion of his ownership stake in the Mercedes Formula 1 team.
This transaction values the Mercedes team at £4.6 billion – a record for an F1 team – after the McLaren team was appraised at £3.5bn in an adjustment to corporate structure last September.
The Austrian executive, who owns a 33% stake of Mercedes F1, plans to divest a shareholding in the region of 5%.
The 53-year-old would stay on as team boss and CEO if the sale goes through.
Ownership Breakdown
The other shareholders in the team are Mercedes and chemicals giant Ineos Group, who each also own a third of the enterprise.
An official representative stated: "We will be making no official statement on this. The management structure of the team will remain unaltered, and all three partners are dedicated to the ongoing success of the brand in F1."
Financial Increase
This arrangement would represent a significant increase in worth of Mercedes F1 since Ineos bought its stake for £208 million in 2022.
This surge demonstrates the expansion in market values of F1 teams in the past few years due to the increasing appeal of Formula 1 around the world.
This trend was evident with the success of the F1 movie starring Brad Pitt, which was released last summer and earned over $630 million (£458m) at the box office.
The film represents Pitt's most successful movie and the highest-earning sports movie to date.
Current Performance
The Mercedes team are runner-up in the constructors' championship, trailing McLaren, with three races left in the current championship.
Mercedes' primary racer British driver George Russell has secured victory in two of the 21 grands prix this year and is in fourth place in the drivers' championship behind McLaren drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, and Red Bull's Max Verstappen.
Mercedes won a unprecedented eight consecutive constructors' championships and seven drivers' titles, six for Lewis Hamilton and one by Nico Rosberg, from 2014 and 2021.
