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

This transaction estimates the Mercedes team at £4.6bn – a record for a Formula 1 squad – after the McLaren team were valued at £3.5bn in an adjustment to corporate structure last September.

The Austrian executive, who holds a 33% stake of the Mercedes F1 operation, would sell a shareholding in the region of 5%.

Wolff, aged 53 will remain as team boss and chief executive officer if the sale goes through.

Shareholder Breakdown

Remaining partners in the team are Mercedes and chemicals giant Ineos Group, who each also own a third of the enterprise.

A Mercedes spokesperson said: "We are providing no official statement on the matter. The governance of Mercedes F1 will remain unchanged, and each shareholder are fully committed to the ongoing success of Mercedes-Benz in Formula One."

Financial Growth

The deal signifies a significant increase in value of the Mercedes team since Ineos acquired its share for £208 million in 2022.

The rise demonstrates the expansion in valuations of F1 teams in the past few years as a consequence of the increasing appeal of Formula 1 globally.

This was also seen in the box-office performance of the F1 movie featuring Brad Pitt, which debuted last summer and earned over $630m (£458m) at cinemas worldwide.

It is the actor's top-grossing movie and the highest-earning sports movie ever released.

Present Performance

The Mercedes team are second in the constructors' championship, trailing McLaren Racing, with three races left in the current championship.

Mercedes' primary racer British driver George Russell has won 2 of the 21 grands prix so far and is fourth in the drivers' championship behind McLaren's Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, and Red Bull's Max Verstappen.

Mercedes won a record eight consecutive constructors' championships and seven driver championships, six won by Lewis Hamilton and one for Nico Rosberg, from 2014 to 2021.