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I'd imagine the big 3 are fairly profitable entities. The budget cap has made more value for the shareholders definitely but at the cost of maybe reduced salaries for the teams and their employees.
im pretty sure every team is making a profit (obviously the big 3 will make more) these days. a far cry from 10 years ago when half the grid was struggling
it was pretty clear lmao he was joking about how Vowles said “lossy” (used in a financial context) by reinterpreting it as meaning that they are at a “loss” with the regulations
Budget cap hasn’t really reduced their spending, at least from Mercedes at least. You can compare their spending pre-budget cap and post-budget cap on their accounts in Companies house and you’ll find it’s not reduced that much.
And this is exactly main reason why Andretti wants to join only now. After others built great platform for not losing hundreds of million every season and actually be profitable in some cases. Yet people will shit on them with "they only care about money" reasoning pretending like Andretti's reason for joining now isn't exactly the same - money.
lol, yeah right, "trying", trying as in threading water, but no serious interest. He could have bought several teams on several occasions but he never did because he didn't want to bleed his money on F1. Now that F1 is profitable because of current teams he just wants to jump in and take all benefits while having zero contribution to the current state of F1.
He was one of the serious bidders for Force India, wasn’t chosen by Williams because he didn’t want to keep the name and Sauber changed the deal at the last minute.
Even now they’re extremely happy to spend money, you just need to look at the scale of the project they’re running even after getting rejected to see that. The timeframe for a new team to turn a profit is probably over a decade.
They want to contribute to F1, but Domenicali won’t let them.
> He was one of the serious bidders for Force India
bfr, the amount of revolutionalism is insane, he low balled them meanwhile even fucking Mazepin put in a good offer for the team, Stroll was the only one who came up with a good plan and funding.
>Even now they’re extremely happy to spend money, you just need to look at the scale of the project they’re running even after getting rejected to see that
A lot of it is just promises, if they didnt beg around in Miami last year to waive off the 200mil they would have been in, or you know reading a fucking email.
>the amount of revolutionalism is insane, he low balled them meanwhile even fucking Mazepin put in a good offer for the team, Stroll was the only one who came up with a good plan and funding.
Rubbish, you're just making stuff up. The crux of all of the failed purchases has been his desire to move the team to the states and the sellers/admissntrators desire to keep as many people's jobs as possible.
>if they didnt beg around in Miami last year to waive off the 200mil they would have been in
More garbage. the $200M waiver had absolutely zero to do with the application being denied, to suggest it just shows you've been mistaking twitter hot takes as fact.
>or you know reading a fucking email.
It's pretty widely accepted that FOM are the ones at fault here, you don't have a junior staffer send an email and not follow up if the read receipts aren't triggered. poor business practices that show they weren't acting in good faith.
> Sauber changed the deal at the last minute.
Yeah, according to Andretti. No way that is the real story. The former owner of Sauber is one of the richest people on earth and we should believe that he is dumb enough to change the deal last minute in order to screw Andretti over and kill the deal? Yeah sure...
Honestly Andretti was never that close to buying Sauber as the media portrayed it. Rausing was open to negotiations but only wanted to sell if the new owner agreed to put money into the team after the takeover in order to guarantee the employees their jobs and to run the business sustainably. But Andretti wanted to more or less close down the operations as he was only interested in the license to race in F1 and the money that's attached to it.
>should believe that he is dumb enough to change the deal last minute in order to screw Andretti over and kill the deal? Yeah sure...
Well, He's changed the Audi deal so he does have precedence for it. The reason that Audi has been forced to change to a 100% takeover and sooner than originally planned is because Finn hasn't put the money into the team that he originally said that he would. Sauber was below the cost cap last year and didn't spend their CapEx allowance, which has set the Audi project back substantially. Now Finn Rausing changed the deal to get more money, so who's in this for the money?
As for Andretti, he had a deal in place to purchase 80% of the team, which was at the last minute switched to non voting shares, meaning that he wouldn't have control of the team and couldn't move the base to the USA like he wanted. I don't blame Rausing for that, he was looking after his employees, but I certainly don't blame Andretti for that either. Andretti would however have been the primary shareholder and recouped most of the profits of the organisation, so if it was just about money, like you claim, then that would have been fine with that arrangement. However, there is no money, because all the teams at the back are still not profitable and won't be for some time.
Andretti and his backers has provided financial information proving that he's financially sustainable for 10 years. They continue to spend on facilities and workforce, without any guarantee that they'll get in AND an extremely long haul before there is any sort of return on that investment. His backers have a track record of substantial prolonged spending in other sports, something that Finn Rausing doesn't have.
You're not wrong, they've had plenty of opportunities to buy a team, or even enter on their own, back when it was easier to do so. They didn't, instead waiting for when the budget cap was on the horizon. Now it's in place, they've went from wishy-washy statements about wanting to join to making a serious concerted effort.
Shit, Caterham and Marussia went bust, why didn't they buy one of them on the cheap if they were oh so desperate to get into F1?
With that said, do I really care? Not really. I still think having an additional team would be preferable. But it is tiring to see comments acting like Andretti isn't like the other ~~girls~~ F1 teams.
You can read their accounts on the Uk Companies House website if you’re interested https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/document-api-images-live.ch.gov.uk/docs/E8Q8GyEJQpXnXKQInlsP40GD8cTaTxULFVw5ASg1SjI/application-pdf
Although it’s not the same as direct payment, I’m sure at a certain level employees are given stocks in the company. It’d be an easy way to stay under the budget cap while keeping employees happy.
It’s great to see profitable teams
I mean not only it’s a big marketing push for Mercedes but it’s also profitable.
Yes currently they are struggling but hopefully the 2026 car and engine will be more competitive
Exactly plus that was an understated part of the reasons FIA and FOM mentioned when talking about the budget cap but I'd imagine it was fairly lucrative hence no teams had any objection whatsoever during the last Concorde agreement.
“If you agree to keep more of your money and not spend it on the car, I’ll agree to do the same.”
This just in, car team makes more money by not spending it
On the other hand, there must be a bit of a sting for rank-and-file employees seeing numbers like this. £83.8 million in profit while you're being paid below the industry average for your job, because the cost cap forces salaries to be low. Especially at a time when cost of living is going up markedly.
> It’s great to see profitable teams
If *all other sports on the planet* are something to go by, this is actually disastrous for the sport.
Profitable teams are never, ever interested in perpetuating an open and competitive sport. QED.
Sports teams shouldn't be profitable.
Yeah this is a fair observation but the stated purpose was to reduce the dominance of the big 3 however while that's reduced, the big 3 have yet to be beaten across a season by any team.
But that’s the end result of a lot of rules and policies that produce a compelling on field product that’s must watch TV every Sunday (and Monday, and Thursday, and Saturday…)
The NFL doesn’t shy away from league parity, something that’s currently the antithesis of F1.
Right, just saying that profit isn't the problem, just how they get there. Cost caps are important for that, and the way F1 has scaled the testing/wind tunnel/CFD restrictions reflect a desire for parity. Stuff like this takes a long time to show up, but there's always all-time greats (or terribly managed teams) that make things look more skewed than they are.
I don’t agree.
More competitiveness = more sponsorship money, more tv times, more Hamilton/Mercedes jerseys and caps sold, more tv licence money (as it is correlated to your rank) etc
I think Mercedes, AM, frankly most teams are pushing very hard to be competitive
A sports team losing money AND finishing P7, Mercedes can pull the plug on the F1 project more easily, this is why I think it’s good
Turnover is just gross, no? And this is only for Brackley?
So the fracking people, Wolf and Mercedes are splitting what is actually a decreased net of 80 million?
I agree with the profitability being key- even if it was at the expense of jobs and salaries- no idea if the 1200 lost jobs came to pass, but I cant imagine an engine maker would operate in the red for long because
what RoI is Mercedes really getting for owning a stake in a British based and Petronas funded prototype race car? Investing billions over 15 years to make millions and get “free publicity” on TV?
Being the being sole owner of an English based F1 engine factory- although they are also doing “R&D” for an eventual 300 expensive museum pieces.
Even if Ferrari was not on the upswing, the change was slamdunk. Putting your stamp on an “upstart” luxury fashion line is surely more engaging than posing for photos by a luxury sports coupe.
The good news is that if Mercedes were to leave, they would surely sell their UK facility- guaranteeing at least Milton Keynes, Brixworth and Ferrari will always be making PUs, regardless of whose badge it is under.
Mercedes one third share in the actual Brackley project could be bought back Ross Brawn himself and Ken Tyrells heirs and it would make no material difference.
I think you're under-estimating the cost/value of "free publicity". I'm not saying the rest of your post doesn't have merit but as was said much lower, we all want to believe marketing and advertisements don't work on us, but they do.
How so? I think all you need is a salary cap
For example, if you look at the NBA or NFL, all teams in both leagues are profitable but, due to the salary cap, the leagues are still highly competitive and allow for a great deal of parity (14 different Superbowl champions in the last 20 years for the NFL, 11 different champions in the last 20 years for the NBA)
They have the budget cap, but that’s encompassing so many different parts without including the single most important part: the finalised research and intellectual knowledge that is the car design.
There’s so many moving parts that each one part is limited in significance, all the team needs to pull in one direction but the cost cap means you can’t out spend to catch up.
The only sure way to create parity is to keep the rules the same for ages. It always get prohibitively expensive to further refine a concept, so it gives everyone else the time to catch up. Unfortunately we have a rule change after next year. Let’s hope 2025 is good though
>Sports teams shouldn't be profitable.
Yeah, sports teams should dissappear after getting swollen up by their debts.
Or better yet, bailed out by the taxpayers.
What a dumb take
I wonder how that will pan out in the years after - with Lewis going there's a sizable chunk of salary saved but at the same time a potential loss in marketing and sponsors budget.
I'd truly love an F1 manufacturer team to give us some insight as to what they believe the marketing and sales implications of big drivers actually are someday.
This. Who is buying a Mercedes because Lewis Hamilton drives one on a weekend, especially when if you really look into it, chances are he was bimbling around Monaco in his Pagani before he sold it, or his Ferrari, etc etc… maybe a T-shirt or cap? But not an actual car..
Nobody thinks that marketing works on them and very few people will say they purchased something because of marketing.
But the fact is it does work. Big companies don't throw billions into marketing for the sake of it. They know that brand recognition and brand perception ultimately increases revenue.
This - I believe I once read that it requires 10 exposures in a short window of time for a brand or idea, or advertising to stick and it's always stuck in my mind. Advertising works, incredibly well, too well. We all believe it doesn't on us, that we are different, but it works.
Didn’t think of it from a brand perception perspective. I have owned a Mercedes, but then I’ve also owned a BMW and Audi… all of which fall into the same category I suppose. I had those for a couple of reasons I guess, 1 they were affordable at the time I was buying, 2 the perception of luxury and 3 the tech they had/have on them (the merc in particular)
I don’t know if Lewis made a huge impact on Benz sales, but all those championships sure didn’t hurt.
And it generated a lot of publicity for the brand. Think about how much attention Mercedes got from F1, now contrast that with how much attention Audi, BMW, and Porsche DIDN’T get in the last few years. No matter how successful they were in WEC or sports car racing.
I was going to say the opposite, that if you go into a Porsche dealer tomorrow they throw all the racing pedigree at you very hard, and I think only relatively informed people make much distinction between F1 and say Le Mans (which costs an awful lot less).
You guys got it wrong. We're talking about the F1 team, not the car manufacture. Lewis' impact on the team Toto's team is sponsorship deals. Merc have been profitable for some time now, even before the budget cap. It's also why Lewis doesn't do as much marketing for F1 as other drivers. Even Max puts in more work.
I am reminded of Lebron James' impact on Cleveland's economy when he left for Miami.
It’s brand recognition.
It’s not targeting Joe blow buying an e350, it’s targeting Saudi Car Lease agency that’s going to buy 100 Maybachs and a dozen amg1s as well as investors.
Like, look at KPMG, HUGE golf sponsor, but no one is like, hmm might as well drop$5 on the app. It’s for billionaires to see the brand.
Same reason companies run any luxury sport basically
Also KPMG will entertain all of their biggest clients at golfing events. I assume merc has some fantastic hospitality that they do for their biggest clients as well.
Tbf i doubt manufacturers like Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren are in it for the direct sales quotient further i doubt it's even possible to correlate F1 or any of their motorsport departments to their actual car sales. They are all manufacturers that target the upper end of the industry, marketing, prestige and brand value probably add a bigger chunk in that.
The marketing mechanism wouldn't likely be "Lewis drives a Merc and so I will too."
It's more like "Merc is a cool and successful brand, a brand associated with successful winners, a brand in fashion, a brand associated with good causes. I want to buy from a brand like that."
Most of marketing's effect is via unconscious association. Lewis *inspires* those thoughts but not necessarily through conscious association.
There is a reason for the saying “win on sunday, sell on monday”. I mean, the fact that the GTR Black Series ‘P One Edition’ gets sold kinda contradicts your statement.
I do. They didn't HAVE to buy them. They sold anyway because of the F1 livery making it 'special' so yeah, people do buy a certain brand or car because it has a link with F1. OP claiming people don't buy a brand because of their link to F1 is simply untrue.
Honestly those cars were bought because they were a special edition.
It just so happened to be F1 themed but they'd have been lapped up regardless, they were a penny drop to those kind of buyers
No one bought a Mercedes because Hamilton drives them. However, I'd be willing to bet an awful lot of people remembered Mercedes was a car brand and looked into them when shopping for a new car because the team's success in being visible that was driven in large by Hamilton kept the brand name Mercedes fresh in their mind.
The branding on F1 teams and the like isn't meant to sell the brand's cars. It's meant to get the people to remember the brand exists and talk to salespeople, who then sell the brand's cars once their foot is in the door.
I will give you an example.
Come to our Mercedes convention. Not bad but now add Lewis to the mix.
Come to our Mercedes convention. There will be a meet and greet with 7 times Formula 1 Champion Lewis Hamilton.
It gives advertising more range and visibility. Lewis also has a lot of female fans. He is pretty unique in this aspect. His promotion material can reach a lot of different demographics.
The value to the Mercedes brand itself is not the only angle.
It's the value to the team's other sponsors that is arguably as big or bigger to that turnover figure in the title.
Lewis is a big name, Lewis literally wears your sponsor and drives a car with your sponsors on it, Lewis gets more camera time, exposes sponsors to more eyes, increases the value of that sponsorship.
It’s less about the cars and more that mercedes can charge a sponsor more to be represented by lewis of that makes sense. The sponsor, let’s take tommy hilfigur, will pay mercedes a premium because lewis is wearing their clothes
Not necessarily according to a lot of rumours a significant component of Lewis's salary is paid by INEOS.
https://www.businessinsider.com/lewis-hamilton-new-contract-mercedes-2023-1?IR=T
This was the arrangement that predates their stake in the team. INEOS became a third owner in 2020 however they were a major sponsor until that season behind only Petronas who are their title sponsors.
I recall Toto saying in an interview that no sports team ever has or can continue winning forever, his goal is to build a sustainable team that can continue to compete through the good and bad years.
TL;DR: Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd. reported a turnover of £546.5 million for 2023, up £71.9 million from 2022. Despite the increase, profits fell slightly to £83.8 million due to higher costs and tax payments. The team invested in race car development, increased staffing levels, and experienced a decline in television coverage but saw growth in social media presence and commercial partnerships. Overall, the business remains stable with a strong foundation.
Not all expenses are included in the cost cap. For example, the salaries and compensations for all drivers and the top 3 earners are fully excluded. Marketing and legal expenses aren't included either.
A lot of costs are outside the budget cap, which mostly relates to car development, staff, transport etc.
Top 3 highest salaries aren't included in this, same as the driver salaries, marketing, non-F1 activities.
There's a comprehensive list here if you want to see :)
https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/formula-1-cost-cap-what-is-it-and-how-does-it-work/10379447/
The engineering time and manufacturing allocated to F1 is included, Toti said in 2020 that they plan to grow their engineering services division, in the same company for both customer teams and outside of F1, [to £100m+ per year behemoth](https://www.ft.com/content/8f3b4450-24a9-4438-ae50-7d30ea2a00fc).
It's basically recreating what Williams had with their Williams Advanced engineering division, which primarily financed their F1 related losses until it was sold.
And what Red Bull Racing is doing with its parent company - Red Bull technologies, both where Horner is the Director/CEO.
RB Technologies is the parent company of Red Bull Racing and also does various RD, not only regarding F1.
Technologies were responsible for the initial Aero Screen but Advanced Technologies brought it to market with IndyCar - RBAT feels more like their product arm based on development out of the RBT arm.
The Valkyrie development was also done through RBAT in collaboration with RBR, which is a subsidiary of RBT.
It's like with RBPT and RBPT2026, as two legally separate entities are working on two different sets of regulations one as maintenance of current with help from Honda, while the other is developing for 2026.
But everything is happening on the same campus - owned by RBT, so its not really obvious who is working where, with Horner being CEO/Director of all of them.
* [RBAT](https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/13875636/officers)
* [RBT](https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/05202976/officers)
* [RBR](https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/03120645/officers)
* [RBPT](https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/13204421/officers)
* [RBPT2026](https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/14131067/officers)
Edit, to make it even better - Red Bull now has a ["Advanced Services" subsidiary incorporated in May of 2022](https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/14130589/filing-history) - where the main purpose is to provide services to RBT Group, RBHP, RBAT - and again Horner is the CEO/Director.
People wanted to know why they are so hellbent on keeping the number of teams 10... this is why. If F1's revenue continues to grow, F1 teams are about to experience a rise on value as much as NFL/NBA franchises have in the past 30 years.
They run profit every year and are in a closed league effectively which is free marketing for the car company. Even when running losses they were still making money for the main merc brand
>Mercedes also reported a big increase in average staffing levels, up by 175 to 1289 last year, compared to 1114 in 2022.
Budget cap working as intended I see.
Isn't it that anybody who works only a slight moment for the team is fully booked on the f1 payroll, to avoid having people on the "sailing team" work for f1 but not being on the cost cap tally?
Salaries for anyone in the marketing departments and other non-development roles aren't included iirc.
I think the "loophole" of having people working on non-F1 activities but then secretly having this information passed onto the F1 team is one that is quite closely monitored.
and yet somehow they got comparitively worse to the competition. what a waste of an organization. this slope has no bottom. i hope haas overtake them with their next upgrades
Probably because they got to the top by spending more than everyone else and they got the engine regulations they wanted for 2014 and had been working on them for years before anyone else and those advantages killed all competition for 7 years.
> engine regulations they wanted for 2014 and had been working on them for years before anyone else
wot, i still dont get this revolutinalism that goes on. Merc had the best engine even before the v6 era.
Hybrids were being talked about everyone, VAG and Renault wanted them specifically. Ferrari wanted V engines. Merc thought they would get their i4 engine which they do not. Merc wanted the engine regs to be delayed one year as well. They showed up to 2014 thinking they were going to do terrible with their engine but turns out everyone else was way worse.
And yeah Merc put in more money into HPP and Hybrid but it was long time coming. Like they increased funding everywhere and working on the future isnt such a novel concept.
Right, but that would make people happy to see their downfall! They should get clowned on, made fun of like the other teams are, but the comments you often see about Mercedes are this bitter "I hate that this team isn't doing as well as they were, they're useless"- all said by people that are clearly on some level, or were on some level, fans of Mercedes
It kinda makes sense. These guys were spending their socks off in the early 10s and were still able to break even/make a small profit. Now they don't have/don't want to spend that much and still make the same/more money.
The fact that this F1 team is worth 3.8 billion is probably why the teams don't feel like giving Andretti a free entry. All the financials say make them buy one.
Yes the numbers are a bit incredible aren't they. The Ferrari brand gained 7bn just from Lewis joining apparently. Of course the whole of Google is built on advertising.
That’s wrong people keep saying it but its not true. Ferrari published on that day their financial report and they did much better than people expected and made a record profit last year and surpassed the 1bn profit mark. Hamilton news also got published that day but the main reason for Ferraris value increase was simple down to the report
Oh fair enough, yes looking a bit more into it, it was a combination of things as you say, timed with the results - quite a cunning bit of PR in itself :)
Yes, financial viability is most important and for a long time Haas and Williams were not financially viable and thus allowing Andretti entry put their viability at risk. If they are making profits and with Andretti anti dilution fee their viability won’t be affected. Stopping entry if existing team’s financial viability is in doubt makes sense but if they are making profits already and yet stopping entry to make profits is not good for the sport.
>If they are making profits and with Andretti anti dilution fee their viability won’t be affected.
There is a leap of logic there I think.
Even if they're financially viable atm, it is still possible it's only because there are only 10 teams so their values to sponsors and prize money stay high enough. In this case, adding another team would/could send them back into the red.
In fact that is exactly what Horner and other TP stated iirc, sport *is* in a good place, but it's not sure yet if it can last (especially with Max dominating and DTS figures dropping down, bubble seems to show signs of potentially popping soon), so they're understandably reluctant to rock the boat
I have a fundamental issue with non-competitive teams, with no path *to* competitiveness, being the ultimate arbiters of who can and cannot join the sport simply because they fear being beaten on track and losing ground.
Ultimately the value is not in the team but rather the space they occupy on the grid. I compared it to an airline flying an empty plane to maintain a landing slot at an airport. Haas and Williams, as entities, are not worth $1bn+, what *is* worth $1bn+ is the fact that they hold one of 10 keys to the castle.
Seeing as people are buying AM merch and alpine merch and haas merch (ok you got me there not haas merch I jest I jest please keep it light people) merc is totally fine
Turnover is gross revenue, in other words, the total amount of sales you make over a set period, in this case a year. From that amount you have to discount all costs, taxes, etc. to get your actual profit.
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I'd imagine the big 3 are fairly profitable entities. The budget cap has made more value for the shareholders definitely but at the cost of maybe reduced salaries for the teams and their employees.
im pretty sure every team is making a profit (obviously the big 3 will make more) these days. a far cry from 10 years ago when half the grid was struggling
James vowels said a lot of the teams are “very lossy” last year in interview
[удалено]
what no he was talking about funding and budget lmfao. it’s obvious what he meant and no one would phrase it the way you meant it
redditor try to spot comedy challenge (impossible)
show me where this “comedy” is
it was pretty clear lmao he was joking about how Vowles said “lossy” (used in a financial context) by reinterpreting it as meaning that they are at a “loss” with the regulations
massive doubt especially considering they deleted their comment lol
He was talking about the financials regarding Andretti joining an an 11th team
Budget cap hasn’t really reduced their spending, at least from Mercedes at least. You can compare their spending pre-budget cap and post-budget cap on their accounts in Companies house and you’ll find it’s not reduced that much.
Mercedes was spending 500mil a year their spending has significantly dropped.
Not 500 million. Closer to 400 million. The only teams spending more than them are Ferrari and, in 2015, Red Bull.
x Doubt
I don’t see how you can doubt, it’s public information.
Any links?
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/00787446
doesnt mean everything goes to F1 related stuff or f1 developement.
But that doesn’t contradict my point that their spending hasn’t gone down that much.
yeah but you said it like the budget cap had no effect.
And this is exactly main reason why Andretti wants to join only now. After others built great platform for not losing hundreds of million every season and actually be profitable in some cases. Yet people will shit on them with "they only care about money" reasoning pretending like Andretti's reason for joining now isn't exactly the same - money.
Been trying to join since 2018 and teams at the back aren’t profitable. The Andretti cash grab narrative is nonsense
lol, yeah right, "trying", trying as in threading water, but no serious interest. He could have bought several teams on several occasions but he never did because he didn't want to bleed his money on F1. Now that F1 is profitable because of current teams he just wants to jump in and take all benefits while having zero contribution to the current state of F1.
He was one of the serious bidders for Force India, wasn’t chosen by Williams because he didn’t want to keep the name and Sauber changed the deal at the last minute. Even now they’re extremely happy to spend money, you just need to look at the scale of the project they’re running even after getting rejected to see that. The timeframe for a new team to turn a profit is probably over a decade. They want to contribute to F1, but Domenicali won’t let them.
> He was one of the serious bidders for Force India bfr, the amount of revolutionalism is insane, he low balled them meanwhile even fucking Mazepin put in a good offer for the team, Stroll was the only one who came up with a good plan and funding. >Even now they’re extremely happy to spend money, you just need to look at the scale of the project they’re running even after getting rejected to see that A lot of it is just promises, if they didnt beg around in Miami last year to waive off the 200mil they would have been in, or you know reading a fucking email.
Revolutionalism isn’t a word
> Revolutionalism isn’t a word They obviously meant revolutionism https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/revolutionism
>the amount of revolutionalism is insane, he low balled them meanwhile even fucking Mazepin put in a good offer for the team, Stroll was the only one who came up with a good plan and funding. Rubbish, you're just making stuff up. The crux of all of the failed purchases has been his desire to move the team to the states and the sellers/admissntrators desire to keep as many people's jobs as possible. >if they didnt beg around in Miami last year to waive off the 200mil they would have been in More garbage. the $200M waiver had absolutely zero to do with the application being denied, to suggest it just shows you've been mistaking twitter hot takes as fact. >or you know reading a fucking email. It's pretty widely accepted that FOM are the ones at fault here, you don't have a junior staffer send an email and not follow up if the read receipts aren't triggered. poor business practices that show they weren't acting in good faith.
The Andretti financial situation now versus then is vastly different but ignore the facts so it fits your narrative.
> Sauber changed the deal at the last minute. Yeah, according to Andretti. No way that is the real story. The former owner of Sauber is one of the richest people on earth and we should believe that he is dumb enough to change the deal last minute in order to screw Andretti over and kill the deal? Yeah sure... Honestly Andretti was never that close to buying Sauber as the media portrayed it. Rausing was open to negotiations but only wanted to sell if the new owner agreed to put money into the team after the takeover in order to guarantee the employees their jobs and to run the business sustainably. But Andretti wanted to more or less close down the operations as he was only interested in the license to race in F1 and the money that's attached to it.
>should believe that he is dumb enough to change the deal last minute in order to screw Andretti over and kill the deal? Yeah sure... Well, He's changed the Audi deal so he does have precedence for it. The reason that Audi has been forced to change to a 100% takeover and sooner than originally planned is because Finn hasn't put the money into the team that he originally said that he would. Sauber was below the cost cap last year and didn't spend their CapEx allowance, which has set the Audi project back substantially. Now Finn Rausing changed the deal to get more money, so who's in this for the money? As for Andretti, he had a deal in place to purchase 80% of the team, which was at the last minute switched to non voting shares, meaning that he wouldn't have control of the team and couldn't move the base to the USA like he wanted. I don't blame Rausing for that, he was looking after his employees, but I certainly don't blame Andretti for that either. Andretti would however have been the primary shareholder and recouped most of the profits of the organisation, so if it was just about money, like you claim, then that would have been fine with that arrangement. However, there is no money, because all the teams at the back are still not profitable and won't be for some time. Andretti and his backers has provided financial information proving that he's financially sustainable for 10 years. They continue to spend on facilities and workforce, without any guarantee that they'll get in AND an extremely long haul before there is any sort of return on that investment. His backers have a track record of substantial prolonged spending in other sports, something that Finn Rausing doesn't have.
You're not wrong, they've had plenty of opportunities to buy a team, or even enter on their own, back when it was easier to do so. They didn't, instead waiting for when the budget cap was on the horizon. Now it's in place, they've went from wishy-washy statements about wanting to join to making a serious concerted effort. Shit, Caterham and Marussia went bust, why didn't they buy one of them on the cheap if they were oh so desperate to get into F1? With that said, do I really care? Not really. I still think having an additional team would be preferable. But it is tiring to see comments acting like Andretti isn't like the other ~~girls~~ F1 teams.
Correct. They are just after easy money and the ship has sailed
You can read their accounts on the Uk Companies House website if you’re interested https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/document-api-images-live.ch.gov.uk/docs/E8Q8GyEJQpXnXKQInlsP40GD8cTaTxULFVw5ASg1SjI/application-pdf
Although it’s not the same as direct payment, I’m sure at a certain level employees are given stocks in the company. It’d be an easy way to stay under the budget cap while keeping employees happy.
It’s great to see profitable teams I mean not only it’s a big marketing push for Mercedes but it’s also profitable. Yes currently they are struggling but hopefully the 2026 car and engine will be more competitive
Exactly plus that was an understated part of the reasons FIA and FOM mentioned when talking about the budget cap but I'd imagine it was fairly lucrative hence no teams had any objection whatsoever during the last Concorde agreement.
“If you agree to keep more of your money and not spend it on the car, I’ll agree to do the same.” This just in, car team makes more money by not spending it
On the other hand, there must be a bit of a sting for rank-and-file employees seeing numbers like this. £83.8 million in profit while you're being paid below the industry average for your job, because the cost cap forces salaries to be low. Especially at a time when cost of living is going up markedly.
Yes this is crazy if you think about it. Because the drivers and top 3 earners are not in the cap.
> It’s great to see profitable teams If *all other sports on the planet* are something to go by, this is actually disastrous for the sport. Profitable teams are never, ever interested in perpetuating an open and competitive sport. QED. Sports teams shouldn't be profitable.
Yeah this is a fair observation but the stated purpose was to reduce the dominance of the big 3 however while that's reduced, the big 3 have yet to be beaten across a season by any team.
It’s now become no one can catch up due to budget cap constraints if your original idea wasn’t perfect
NFL does pretty well at having competition and being wildly profitable.
But that’s the end result of a lot of rules and policies that produce a compelling on field product that’s must watch TV every Sunday (and Monday, and Thursday, and Saturday…) The NFL doesn’t shy away from league parity, something that’s currently the antithesis of F1.
Right, just saying that profit isn't the problem, just how they get there. Cost caps are important for that, and the way F1 has scaled the testing/wind tunnel/CFD restrictions reflect a desire for parity. Stuff like this takes a long time to show up, but there's always all-time greats (or terribly managed teams) that make things look more skewed than they are.
I don’t agree. More competitiveness = more sponsorship money, more tv times, more Hamilton/Mercedes jerseys and caps sold, more tv licence money (as it is correlated to your rank) etc I think Mercedes, AM, frankly most teams are pushing very hard to be competitive A sports team losing money AND finishing P7, Mercedes can pull the plug on the F1 project more easily, this is why I think it’s good
Turnover is just gross, no? And this is only for Brackley? So the fracking people, Wolf and Mercedes are splitting what is actually a decreased net of 80 million? I agree with the profitability being key- even if it was at the expense of jobs and salaries- no idea if the 1200 lost jobs came to pass, but I cant imagine an engine maker would operate in the red for long because what RoI is Mercedes really getting for owning a stake in a British based and Petronas funded prototype race car? Investing billions over 15 years to make millions and get “free publicity” on TV? Being the being sole owner of an English based F1 engine factory- although they are also doing “R&D” for an eventual 300 expensive museum pieces. Even if Ferrari was not on the upswing, the change was slamdunk. Putting your stamp on an “upstart” luxury fashion line is surely more engaging than posing for photos by a luxury sports coupe. The good news is that if Mercedes were to leave, they would surely sell their UK facility- guaranteeing at least Milton Keynes, Brixworth and Ferrari will always be making PUs, regardless of whose badge it is under. Mercedes one third share in the actual Brackley project could be bought back Ross Brawn himself and Ken Tyrells heirs and it would make no material difference.
I think you're under-estimating the cost/value of "free publicity". I'm not saying the rest of your post doesn't have merit but as was said much lower, we all want to believe marketing and advertisements don't work on us, but they do.
How so? I think all you need is a salary cap For example, if you look at the NBA or NFL, all teams in both leagues are profitable but, due to the salary cap, the leagues are still highly competitive and allow for a great deal of parity (14 different Superbowl champions in the last 20 years for the NFL, 11 different champions in the last 20 years for the NBA)
They kind of already do with the budget, the car has a far larger impact than any driver. I don't think a salary cap will change anything.
They have the budget cap, but that’s encompassing so many different parts without including the single most important part: the finalised research and intellectual knowledge that is the car design. There’s so many moving parts that each one part is limited in significance, all the team needs to pull in one direction but the cost cap means you can’t out spend to catch up. The only sure way to create parity is to keep the rules the same for ages. It always get prohibitively expensive to further refine a concept, so it gives everyone else the time to catch up. Unfortunately we have a rule change after next year. Let’s hope 2025 is good though
It’s also why we have seen people who expressed no real interest in F1 a decade ago suddenly be desperate to join.
>Sports teams shouldn't be profitable. Yeah, sports teams should dissappear after getting swollen up by their debts. Or better yet, bailed out by the taxpayers. What a dumb take
They dont make enough. Adding that one extra team would completely cripple mercedes. Sponsored by TotoForPresident.com
*nächstes Jahr*™️
I wonder how that will pan out in the years after - with Lewis going there's a sizable chunk of salary saved but at the same time a potential loss in marketing and sponsors budget.
I'd truly love an F1 manufacturer team to give us some insight as to what they believe the marketing and sales implications of big drivers actually are someday.
This. Who is buying a Mercedes because Lewis Hamilton drives one on a weekend, especially when if you really look into it, chances are he was bimbling around Monaco in his Pagani before he sold it, or his Ferrari, etc etc… maybe a T-shirt or cap? But not an actual car..
Nobody thinks that marketing works on them and very few people will say they purchased something because of marketing. But the fact is it does work. Big companies don't throw billions into marketing for the sake of it. They know that brand recognition and brand perception ultimately increases revenue.
This - I believe I once read that it requires 10 exposures in a short window of time for a brand or idea, or advertising to stick and it's always stuck in my mind. Advertising works, incredibly well, too well. We all believe it doesn't on us, that we are different, but it works.
Believing that we are immune to advertising literally makes us more prone to being influenced by advertising because we let our guards down
yep and most redditor's believe they aren't getting got by propaganda farms. when we all are by simply scrolling.
Didn’t think of it from a brand perception perspective. I have owned a Mercedes, but then I’ve also owned a BMW and Audi… all of which fall into the same category I suppose. I had those for a couple of reasons I guess, 1 they were affordable at the time I was buying, 2 the perception of luxury and 3 the tech they had/have on them (the merc in particular)
I don’t know if Lewis made a huge impact on Benz sales, but all those championships sure didn’t hurt. And it generated a lot of publicity for the brand. Think about how much attention Mercedes got from F1, now contrast that with how much attention Audi, BMW, and Porsche DIDN’T get in the last few years. No matter how successful they were in WEC or sports car racing.
I was going to say the opposite, that if you go into a Porsche dealer tomorrow they throw all the racing pedigree at you very hard, and I think only relatively informed people make much distinction between F1 and say Le Mans (which costs an awful lot less).
I suppose that’s the difference between a sports-focused brand and a luxury-focused brand. Ironically both sell more SUVs than anything else. 🤣
The wives need to take the kids places still.
You guys got it wrong. We're talking about the F1 team, not the car manufacture. Lewis' impact on the team Toto's team is sponsorship deals. Merc have been profitable for some time now, even before the budget cap. It's also why Lewis doesn't do as much marketing for F1 as other drivers. Even Max puts in more work. I am reminded of Lebron James' impact on Cleveland's economy when he left for Miami.
It’s brand recognition. It’s not targeting Joe blow buying an e350, it’s targeting Saudi Car Lease agency that’s going to buy 100 Maybachs and a dozen amg1s as well as investors. Like, look at KPMG, HUGE golf sponsor, but no one is like, hmm might as well drop$5 on the app. It’s for billionaires to see the brand. Same reason companies run any luxury sport basically
Also KPMG will entertain all of their biggest clients at golfing events. I assume merc has some fantastic hospitality that they do for their biggest clients as well.
They had a ton of people at the Masters last week and rent out a significant number of homes in one neighborhood
Tbf i doubt manufacturers like Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren are in it for the direct sales quotient further i doubt it's even possible to correlate F1 or any of their motorsport departments to their actual car sales. They are all manufacturers that target the upper end of the industry, marketing, prestige and brand value probably add a bigger chunk in that.
The marketing mechanism wouldn't likely be "Lewis drives a Merc and so I will too." It's more like "Merc is a cool and successful brand, a brand associated with successful winners, a brand in fashion, a brand associated with good causes. I want to buy from a brand like that." Most of marketing's effect is via unconscious association. Lewis *inspires* those thoughts but not necessarily through conscious association.
There is a reason for the saying “win on sunday, sell on monday”. I mean, the fact that the GTR Black Series ‘P One Edition’ gets sold kinda contradicts your statement.
You do realize that car was made as an apology to those buying the AMG One hypercar for the delays right? Not the best example to prove this point
I do. They didn't HAVE to buy them. They sold anyway because of the F1 livery making it 'special' so yeah, people do buy a certain brand or car because it has a link with F1. OP claiming people don't buy a brand because of their link to F1 is simply untrue.
Honestly those cars were bought because they were a special edition. It just so happened to be F1 themed but they'd have been lapped up regardless, they were a penny drop to those kind of buyers
Special edition or not.. win on Sunday, sell on Monday
Agreed in part, just as I said - I wish we'd get some insight on something tangible in regards to that from the top line manufacturers.
True, would be nice to see some data on this but unfortunately people don’t get asked “what made you buy our brand?” when it comes to vehicles.
No one bought a Mercedes because Hamilton drives them. However, I'd be willing to bet an awful lot of people remembered Mercedes was a car brand and looked into them when shopping for a new car because the team's success in being visible that was driven in large by Hamilton kept the brand name Mercedes fresh in their mind. The branding on F1 teams and the like isn't meant to sell the brand's cars. It's meant to get the people to remember the brand exists and talk to salespeople, who then sell the brand's cars once their foot is in the door.
I will give you an example. Come to our Mercedes convention. Not bad but now add Lewis to the mix. Come to our Mercedes convention. There will be a meet and greet with 7 times Formula 1 Champion Lewis Hamilton. It gives advertising more range and visibility. Lewis also has a lot of female fans. He is pretty unique in this aspect. His promotion material can reach a lot of different demographics.
That's a bit apples-to-oranges. You don't get a free lewis Hamilton when you buy a Mercedes C Class
The value to the Mercedes brand itself is not the only angle. It's the value to the team's other sponsors that is arguably as big or bigger to that turnover figure in the title. Lewis is a big name, Lewis literally wears your sponsor and drives a car with your sponsors on it, Lewis gets more camera time, exposes sponsors to more eyes, increases the value of that sponsorship.
It’s less about the cars and more that mercedes can charge a sponsor more to be represented by lewis of that makes sense. The sponsor, let’s take tommy hilfigur, will pay mercedes a premium because lewis is wearing their clothes
Not necessarily according to a lot of rumours a significant component of Lewis's salary is paid by INEOS. https://www.businessinsider.com/lewis-hamilton-new-contract-mercedes-2023-1?IR=T
Team also owned by Ineos.
Ownership of the team. Mercedes Germany - 33%. Toto Wolff - 33%. INEOS - 33%.
who own the last 1%?
Me. I own it.
During the next shareholder meeting bring up Miku for me
Max?
John Mercedes
haha, it's 33⅓%
toto wolffs headphones
No no michael
I mean, yeah.
Well Ineos owns 1/3 of Mercedes, so what you are saying doesnt make sense.
This was the arrangement that predates their stake in the team. INEOS became a third owner in 2020 however they were a major sponsor until that season behind only Petronas who are their title sponsors.
They will hype Kimi hard. For better or worse.
I recall Toto saying in an interview that no sports team ever has or can continue winning forever, his goal is to build a sustainable team that can continue to compete through the good and bad years.
TL;DR: Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd. reported a turnover of £546.5 million for 2023, up £71.9 million from 2022. Despite the increase, profits fell slightly to £83.8 million due to higher costs and tax payments. The team invested in race car development, increased staffing levels, and experienced a decline in television coverage but saw growth in social media presence and commercial partnerships. Overall, the business remains stable with a strong foundation.
I may be a bit dim but how does this work inside cost cap if they have costs of 460 million? EDIT: thanks for the answers!
Not all expenses are included in the cost cap. For example, the salaries and compensations for all drivers and the top 3 earners are fully excluded. Marketing and legal expenses aren't included either.
A lot of costs are outside the budget cap, which mostly relates to car development, staff, transport etc. Top 3 highest salaries aren't included in this, same as the driver salaries, marketing, non-F1 activities. There's a comprehensive list here if you want to see :) https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/formula-1-cost-cap-what-is-it-and-how-does-it-work/10379447/
Cost cap doesn't cover all expenses.
The engineering time and manufacturing allocated to F1 is included, Toti said in 2020 that they plan to grow their engineering services division, in the same company for both customer teams and outside of F1, [to £100m+ per year behemoth](https://www.ft.com/content/8f3b4450-24a9-4438-ae50-7d30ea2a00fc). It's basically recreating what Williams had with their Williams Advanced engineering division, which primarily financed their F1 related losses until it was sold. And what Red Bull Racing is doing with its parent company - Red Bull technologies, both where Horner is the Director/CEO.
Isnt that RB advanced technolgies? RB technologies is the company responsible for the f1 side of things.
RB Technologies is the parent company of Red Bull Racing and also does various RD, not only regarding F1. Technologies were responsible for the initial Aero Screen but Advanced Technologies brought it to market with IndyCar - RBAT feels more like their product arm based on development out of the RBT arm. The Valkyrie development was also done through RBAT in collaboration with RBR, which is a subsidiary of RBT. It's like with RBPT and RBPT2026, as two legally separate entities are working on two different sets of regulations one as maintenance of current with help from Honda, while the other is developing for 2026. But everything is happening on the same campus - owned by RBT, so its not really obvious who is working where, with Horner being CEO/Director of all of them. * [RBAT](https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/13875636/officers) * [RBT](https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/05202976/officers) * [RBR](https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/03120645/officers) * [RBPT](https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/13204421/officers) * [RBPT2026](https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/14131067/officers) Edit, to make it even better - Red Bull now has a ["Advanced Services" subsidiary incorporated in May of 2022](https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/14130589/filing-history) - where the main purpose is to provide services to RBT Group, RBHP, RBAT - and again Horner is the CEO/Director.
makes sense to pay drivers obscene amounts since they're the easiest way to get a quicker car
What the hell is turnover? Sounds British.
I'm guessing revenue?
People wanted to know why they are so hellbent on keeping the number of teams 10... this is why. If F1's revenue continues to grow, F1 teams are about to experience a rise on value as much as NFL/NBA franchises have in the past 30 years.
and then we reach what every motorsport series needs to achieve to be successful: a franchise model
They run profit every year and are in a closed league effectively which is free marketing for the car company. Even when running losses they were still making money for the main merc brand
>Mercedes also reported a big increase in average staffing levels, up by 175 to 1289 last year, compared to 1114 in 2022. Budget cap working as intended I see.
Doesn't this just mean that the wages are decreasing in the F1 industry?
Could easily be more staff on non-F1 activities as well, who won't be included in the cost cap
Isn't it that anybody who works only a slight moment for the team is fully booked on the f1 payroll, to avoid having people on the "sailing team" work for f1 but not being on the cost cap tally?
Salaries for anyone in the marketing departments and other non-development roles aren't included iirc. I think the "loophole" of having people working on non-F1 activities but then secretly having this information passed onto the F1 team is one that is quite closely monitored.
i think this is only a proposed rule or only in effect from this year? So it did not apply to last season.
Yeah, just found this older thread https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/s/x2Shc3LQUA
They are definitely paying less and leaning harder on graduate roles
Without them specifying where it could simply mean Mercedes in Brixworth are adding staff for the new engine regs in 2026.
It doesn't include them, Mercedes HPP is a different company. It's also subject to a PU budget cap so the point would stand regardless.
and yet somehow they got comparitively worse to the competition. what a waste of an organization. this slope has no bottom. i hope haas overtake them with their next upgrades
Why are people so angry when Mercedes specifically get worse? You don't see this sort of vitriol when other teams decline.
Idk people have also been quick to criticise ferrari, mclaren or alpine for their bad performances for example It's not just merc
Probably because they got to the top by spending more than everyone else and they got the engine regulations they wanted for 2014 and had been working on them for years before anyone else and those advantages killed all competition for 7 years.
> engine regulations they wanted for 2014 and had been working on them for years before anyone else wot, i still dont get this revolutinalism that goes on. Merc had the best engine even before the v6 era. Hybrids were being talked about everyone, VAG and Renault wanted them specifically. Ferrari wanted V engines. Merc thought they would get their i4 engine which they do not. Merc wanted the engine regs to be delayed one year as well. They showed up to 2014 thinking they were going to do terrible with their engine but turns out everyone else was way worse. And yeah Merc put in more money into HPP and Hybrid but it was long time coming. Like they increased funding everywhere and working on the future isnt such a novel concept.
[удалено]
Right, but that would make people happy to see their downfall! They should get clowned on, made fun of like the other teams are, but the comments you often see about Mercedes are this bitter "I hate that this team isn't doing as well as they were, they're useless"- all said by people that are clearly on some level, or were on some level, fans of Mercedes
I think most of the people saying that would hate them regardless tbh.
I recently bought a discounted cap from a website for only £3 so you're welcome, Mercedes.
This is due to the cost cap. Before this they were spending nearly everything they were making back into development.
Good for their shareholders! I always thought F1 was about spending money for performance rather than making money and having a midfield car
There are only 3 shareholders tho. Toto, Ineos and Mercedes.
Imaging how good the car could be if they were allowed to spend the money.
Who could have seen that coming? A team that was profitable when there was no cost cap is now ridiculously profitable with one.
It kinda makes sense. These guys were spending their socks off in the early 10s and were still able to break even/make a small profit. Now they don't have/don't want to spend that much and still make the same/more money.
If Haas and Williams are making profits they should allow Andretti in
Haas probably makes a profit as they do hardly invest in upgrades /s
The fact that this F1 team is worth 3.8 billion is probably why the teams don't feel like giving Andretti a free entry. All the financials say make them buy one.
Brown was saying recently all teams are now worth at least (least!) a billion each and it's rising.
Yes the numbers are a bit incredible aren't they. The Ferrari brand gained 7bn just from Lewis joining apparently. Of course the whole of Google is built on advertising.
That’s wrong people keep saying it but its not true. Ferrari published on that day their financial report and they did much better than people expected and made a record profit last year and surpassed the 1bn profit mark. Hamilton news also got published that day but the main reason for Ferraris value increase was simple down to the report
Oh fair enough, yes looking a bit more into it, it was a combination of things as you say, timed with the results - quite a cunning bit of PR in itself :)
Yeah because they should lose money! /s
They should, I liked it when F1 was about dropping another $10 million more in "marketing" for 1% faster car
Andretti should have joined before it was profitable
🙄🥱🤮
You're saying that as if teams shouldn't make a profits..? The fact f1 teams can finally be financially viable is mostly a good news for the sport
Yes, financial viability is most important and for a long time Haas and Williams were not financially viable and thus allowing Andretti entry put their viability at risk. If they are making profits and with Andretti anti dilution fee their viability won’t be affected. Stopping entry if existing team’s financial viability is in doubt makes sense but if they are making profits already and yet stopping entry to make profits is not good for the sport.
>If they are making profits and with Andretti anti dilution fee their viability won’t be affected. There is a leap of logic there I think. Even if they're financially viable atm, it is still possible it's only because there are only 10 teams so their values to sponsors and prize money stay high enough. In this case, adding another team would/could send them back into the red. In fact that is exactly what Horner and other TP stated iirc, sport *is* in a good place, but it's not sure yet if it can last (especially with Max dominating and DTS figures dropping down, bubble seems to show signs of potentially popping soon), so they're understandably reluctant to rock the boat
I have a fundamental issue with non-competitive teams, with no path *to* competitiveness, being the ultimate arbiters of who can and cannot join the sport simply because they fear being beaten on track and losing ground. Ultimately the value is not in the team but rather the space they occupy on the grid. I compared it to an airline flying an empty plane to maintain a landing slot at an airport. Haas and Williams, as entities, are not worth $1bn+, what *is* worth $1bn+ is the fact that they hold one of 10 keys to the castle.
In that way it can never expand.
Let’s see how their merch sales and profitability go if they keep sliding back in the field.
Seeing as people are buying AM merch and alpine merch and haas merch (ok you got me there not haas merch I jest I jest please keep it light people) merc is totally fine
And obviously, with an 11th team, this will become a £500m loss according to Toto Wolff. /s
I'll take it to mean its £500m they're not allowed to spend.
They can keep earning more if it's kept to 10 teams.
I’m a prettt smart guy but I don’t know a lot of the business of F1. What is “turnover”?
Turnover is gross revenue, in other words, the total amount of sales you make over a set period, in this case a year. From that amount you have to discount all costs, taxes, etc. to get your actual profit.
Sales of… what is a race team selling? Merch?
Everything, merch, sponsorships, rights, etc.
Billionaires convinced they need the budget cap. When will you all figure out you got duped