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Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff is in final negotiations to sell a portion of his shareholding in the Mercedes Formula 1 team.

This transaction values Mercedes at £4.6bn – a record for a Formula 1 squad – following McLaren were valued at £3.5bn in a change of corporate structure last September.

Wolff, who owns a 33% stake of Mercedes F1, plans to divest a stake in the region of five percent.

The 53-year-old will remain as team principal and chief executive officer should the deal proceed.

Shareholder Structure

Remaining partners in Mercedes F1 are Mercedes and chemicals giant Ineos, who each also own a third of the enterprise.

An official representative said: "We will be making no official statement on the matter. The governance of Mercedes F1 stays unchanged, and all three partners are fully committed to continued achievements of the brand in Formula One."

Financial Increase

The deal would represent a substantial rise in value of Mercedes F1 since Ineos Group acquired its share for £208 million in 2022.

The rise demonstrates the growth in valuations of F1 teams in the past few years due to the increasing appeal of Formula 1 globally.

This was also seen in the box-office performance of the Formula 1 film featuring Brad Pitt, which was released last summer and earned more than $630 million (£458m) at the box office.

It is Pitt's most successful movie and the highest-earning sports movie ever released.

Current Performance

Mercedes are runner-up in the team standings, trailing McLaren Racing, with three races left in the current championship.

Their lead driver George Russell has secured victory in 2 of the 21 races so far and is in fourth place in the individual standings after McLaren's Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, and Red Bull Racing's Max Verstappen.

Mercedes won a unprecedented eight straight team titles and seven driver championships, six for Lewis Hamilton and one by Nico Rosberg, from 2014 to 2021.