F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali reveals 'BILLIONS' offered to teams amid popularity SURGE

Wolff and Domenicali — Photo: © LAT Images

Formula 1

F1 CEO reveals 'BILLIONS' offered to teams amid popularity SURGE

Stefano Domenicali has opened up on the mouth-watering sums being offered to F1 teams in recent times

Matthew Hobkinson Lead Editor

F1 Editor & Journalist

Thursday 15 June 2023 08:57

Stefano Domenicali has revealed that Formula 1 teams are being offered "almost billions" in a bid to tempt them into a sale.

F1's popularity has never been higher with the sport attracting a global interest and with it a raft of interested parties looking to invest.

Domenicali, who believes that F1 does not need more teams than the current 10 occupying the grid, has now spoken out over the mouth-watering sums being offered to teams in an attempt for people to buy their way into the sport.

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“In my role I need to consider that the sport can grow only if the majority of all the teams can grow," he told F1's Beyond The Grid podcast. "That was one of the fundamentals of the budget cap to give a credible financial stability to the value of the franchise of the team.

“The more you are able to have a competitive field, the more you may have interesting races, the more you can create the interest in the sport and that’s for sure very, very important.

“It is clear that there are situations where the interest in F1 of these teams is bigger because they are investing and believe this is a real project on which to develop other things.

"And therefore it is important that we give sustainable financial stability for each of them to make sure that everyone can do that."

'F1 teams are refusing billions'

Formula 1's global interest is at an all-time high

“If you look what has happened in such a short term," he added. "Talking about the value of one team, that was not many years ago – I would say two years ago when the new Concorde Agreement has been signed – when there was the talk about what is the value of a team that has to come in F1, there was a number put on the Concorde Agreement that was 200 million.

"Which seems unreachable, because there were teams in the past that were sold for £1.

“Now the market is offering almost billions to teams and they are refusing that. Can you imagine that?

“So that gives you the perspective of what we are building as an ecosystem. We are building important structure, important dynamics of which the more everyone is growing, the better and the stronger is the business platform which we are all working in.”