Toto Wolff is in final negotiations to offload a portion of his ownership stake in the Mercedes F1 outfit.
The deal estimates Mercedes at £4.6 billion – an unprecedented figure for an F1 team – after the McLaren team was appraised at £3.5bn in a change of ownership structure last September.
Wolff, who holds one-third of Mercedes F1, would sell a shareholding in the region of 5%.
The 53-year-old will remain as team principal and CEO should the deal proceed.
Shareholder Structure
Remaining partners in the team are Mercedes and industrial group Ineos, who each also own a third of the company.
An official representative said: "We will be making no official statement on this. The governance of Mercedes F1 will remain unaltered, and all three partners are fully committed to continued achievements of Mercedes-Benz in Formula One."
Valuation Increase
The deal signifies a substantial rise in worth of the Mercedes team since Ineos Group acquired its stake for £208 million in 2022.
This surge reflects the expansion in valuations of F1 teams in the past few years as a consequence of the increasing appeal of Formula 1 around the world.
This trend was evident with the box-office performance of the F1 movie starring Hollywood star Brad Pitt, which was released in summer 2023 and earned over $630m (£458 million) at the box office.
It is Pitt's most successful movie and the most successful sports movie ever released.
Present Performance
Mercedes are second in the team standings, trailing McLaren Racing, with three races remaining in the current championship.
Mercedes' primary racer British driver George Russell has won 2 of the 21 grands prix so far and is in fourth place in the individual standings 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 by Nico Rosberg, from 2014 to 2021.
