Toto Wolff is engaged in advanced talks to offload a portion of his ownership stake in the Mercedes F1 outfit.
This transaction values the Mercedes team at £4.6bn – a record for a Formula 1 squad – after McLaren was appraised at £3.5 billion in a change of ownership structure last September.
The Austrian executive, who owns one-third of the Mercedes F1 operation, plans to divest a shareholding in the region of five percent.
Wolff, aged 53 will remain as team principal and chief executive officer if the sale goes through.
Shareholder Breakdown
Remaining partners in Mercedes F1 are Mercedes and industrial group Ineos Group, who each also own a third of the company.
A Mercedes spokesperson said: "We are providing no official statement on this. The governance of the team stays unchanged, and each shareholder are fully committed to the ongoing success of Mercedes-Benz in Formula One."
Financial Increase
This arrangement would represent a significant increase in worth of the Mercedes team after Ineos acquired its share for £208m in 2022.
This surge demonstrates the expansion in valuations of F1 teams in the past few years as a consequence of the growing popularity of Formula 1 around the world.
This was also seen in the success of the F1 movie featuring Brad Pitt, which debuted last summer and earned more than $630m (£458 million) at cinemas worldwide.
It is the actor's top-grossing film and the highest-earning sports film to date.
Present Standings
The Mercedes team are runner-up in the constructors' championship, trailing McLaren Racing, with three races remaining in the current championship.
Their lead driver British driver George Russell has won 2 of the 21 races so far and is in fourth place in the drivers' championship behind McLaren drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, and Red Bull's Max Verstappen.
Mercedes secured a record eight straight team titles and seven driver championships, six won by Lewis Hamilton and one by Nico Rosberg, between 2014 to 2021.
