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Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff is engaged in final negotiations to offload part of his ownership stake in the Mercedes Formula 1 team.

The deal values the Mercedes team at £4.6bn – a record for a Formula 1 squad – following the McLaren team was appraised at £3.5 billion in a change of ownership structure in September.

The Austrian executive, who holds one-third of the Mercedes F1 operation, would sell a stake approximately five percent.

The 53-year-old will remain as team principal and CEO if the sale goes through.

Shareholder Structure

Remaining partners in the team are Mercedes and industrial group Ineos, who each also own one-third of the enterprise.

An official representative said: "We will be making no official statement on this. The governance of the team stays unaltered, and each shareholder are fully committed to continued achievements of Mercedes-Benz in Formula One."

Valuation Growth

This arrangement signifies a substantial rise in worth of the Mercedes team since Ineos Group bought its stake for £208 million in 2022.

The rise reflects the expansion in valuations of F1 teams in the past few years as a consequence of the increasing appeal of the sport globally.

This trend was evident with the box-office performance of the Formula 1 film featuring Brad Pitt, which was released in summer 2023 and earned over $630m (£458 million) at cinemas worldwide.

It is Pitt's most successful film and the highest-earning sports film to date.

Current Standings

The Mercedes team are runner-up in the team standings, trailing McLaren Racing, with three Grands Prix remaining in the current championship.

Their lead driver George Russell has won two of the 21 grands prix so far and is fourth in the individual standings behind McLaren's Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, and Red Bull's Max Verstappen.

The team won a record eight consecutive constructors' championships and seven drivers' titles, six for Lewis Hamilton and one for Nico Rosberg, between 2014 to 2021.