Déjà View
OFF TO THE RACES
Race Course Wolff begins a teaching fellowship at Harvard Business School in 2024. “Everything else I do is to become better in Formula 1,” he says.
Modern F1 cars zip around at more than 200 miles per hour thanks to cutting-edge 1,000-horsepower engines, but humans have long been rushing from point A to point B. A brief history of racing through the centuries: to English mares. It spreads to America, too, with the three legs of the Triple Crown— the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes—all established by the late 1800s.
776 B.C. | The Olympics begin with a single event: a 600-foot sprint won by Coroebus, a cook from the Greek city of Elis. 46 B.C. | Chariot racing is the most popular sport in Caesar’s time. Romans flock to the city’s Circus
Maximus stadium to watch twoand four-horse teams square off on as many as 60 race days a year. 1700s | Thoroughbred racing takes over England after three speedy Arabian horses are imported from the Middle East and bred
1920s | Southern moonshiners who souped up their cars to evade the G-men soon begin racing one another at local fairgrounds and tracks. Later on, a driver named Bill France convenes the leading motorists in Daytona Beach, Florida, in 1947 and establishes the National Association for Stock Car Racing—Nascar.
new F1 stars, including the charismatic Wolff with his militaristic metaphors, fiery competitiveness and oddly specific breakfast order. (“Ham and eggs. With a little bacon and two pumpernickels, really toasted so they break.”) And F1 will only get bigger this year when it adds a third U.S. Grand Prix in Las Vegas in November. (Miami and Austin, Texas, already host events.) “The sport’s growing,” Wolff says, “but you must not take it for granted.” He’s not taking Mercedes’ good fortune lightly, either, securing a lucrative future even without being world champion. Sponsorships remain the most important revenue stream; Mercedes counts Ritz-Carlton, Monster Energy drinks and watch brand IWC among its partners. It also sells equipment to other teams, including gearboxes to Aston Martin. That doesn’t mean Wolff has any plans to slow his push for wins. “As long as we are competing at the front, racing for victories, being among the top teams,” he says. “Nobody can expect us to win every single year.”
F I N A L T H O U GH T
“AUTO RACING BEGAN FIVE MINUTES AFTER THE SECOND CAR WAS BUILT.” —Henry Ford
F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M
JULY 2023
LEVON BISS FOR FORBES
CONTRARIAN • ENTREPRENEURS
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stake in Mercedes at a $165 million valuation, Forbes estimates. The timing of the move also worked well for Mercedes, given rule changes that expanded hybrid engine use in F1—which the German automaker had already spent more than $100 million developing. The titles followed quickly, with Mercedes collecting both the Constructors’ and Drivers’ Championships in 2014, the first in its dynastic eight-year run. “It was the perfect move from Mercedes at this stage,” says Scuderia Ferrari team principal Frédéric Vasseur, “and they took a real lead on the engine.” That type of strategic spending is now more difficult. Under the cost cap in 2023, teams can spend only roughly $150 million to cover equipment, engineering and staffing. Driver salaries, such as Hamilton’s estimated $55 million, are excluded for now. In years past, big-budget teams like Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull would spend hundreds of millions annually, justifying the cost as global marketing. Lower-end teams would slip into financial ruin trying to keep pace with the F1 elite. Much to the credit of the Liberty Media Corporation, which in 2017 bought Formula 1 for $4.7 billion in cash and stock, and the FIA, racing’s governing body, the cost cap has created greater parity among teams. F1 is also getting a huge boost—especially in America, where the sport has lagged in popularity— from Netflix. Debuting in 2019, the Drive to Survive docuseries, which chronicles each F1 season, tapped into a younger, digital-first audience. It also created
