Formula 1's ownership vacuum creates $18bn exposure as multi-team stakes proliferate
The grid's only structural blind spot—who can own what—now faces pressure from Brown's FIA letter and private capital circling teams worth $2-3bn each.
Published May 30, 2026Source The New York TimesFrom the chopped neck
Formula 1's ownership vacuum creates $18bn exposure as multi-team stakes proliferate
The grid's only structural blind spot—who can own what—now faces pressure from Brown's FIA letter and private capital circling teams worth $2-3bn each.
Formula 1 has no rule preventing an investor from owning stakes in multiple teams. McLaren CEO Zak Brown sent a letter to FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem last week demanding clarity. The silence from Stefano Domenicali's office tells you everything: Liberty Media's $18bn grid has a governance hole, and filling it means picking winners.
Brown's letter arrives as Christian Horner explores minority positions outside Red Bull Racing, and Toto Wolff fields inquiries from family offices sizing 10-15% stakes in second teams as portfolio hedges. The math works until it doesn't. A team principal with 8% of a rival's cap table sits in Friday's strategy briefing with different incentives than his Thursday self. The FIA's sporting code is silent. The Concorde Agreement defers to "good faith." No dollar threshold. No disclosure mandate. No cooling-off period for former principals joining rival boards.
The structural tension is obvious. Team valuations have tripled since 2020—Aston Martin at $2.8bn, Alpine near $2.1bn, Williams approaching $1.5bn—turning F1 franchises into liquid assets for the first time. Private equity owns 30% of McLaren, 24% of Williams, and pieces of three other teams. Add sovereign wealth, add founder liquidity events, add Horner's Rolodex, and you get a grid where competitors share Limited Partners by June. Brown's concern isn't theoretical. It's his next board meeting.
The counterargument from Liberty and several team principals: cross-ownership is a feature, not a bug. It aligns incentives, reduces litigation, smooths Concorde renewals. Look at NFL owners who hold stakes in rival stadiums or NBA franchises sharing arena LLCs. Brown's response, implicit in the letter: those leagues have bright-line rules, majority ownership locks, and transfer restrictions. F1 has a handshake and Sulayem's inbox.
Disney's expansion into F1 Academy this week—adding the feeder series to its consumer products deal—suggests where the governance question lands next. Academy teams are owned by F1 directly, but driver sponsorships increasingly flow from main-grid backers. A principal with equity in two teams can steer a junior driver, a chassis supplier, or a tire allocation decision in ways the sporting regs don't contemplate. The technical working group discusses ride height; no one discusses cap tables.
Sulayem has three options. Grandfather existing stakes and freeze new cross-holdings, angering late entrants like Andretti's backers who already face a $600m anti-dilution fee. Impose retroactive divestment, triggering legal challenges that could cost the FIA $200-400m in settlements. Or draft a bright-line rule—5% per outside team, disclosed quarterly, with a principal recusal protocol—and dare the teams to sue. Brown's letter forces the choice before the 2026 Concorde reset, when team revenue splits and governance structures come up for negotiation.
The Disney-F1 Academy deal matters here because it demonstrates how quickly commercial partnerships propagate through feeder infrastructure. If Academy sponsorships become material—$15-25m annually per team by 2027, per three separate paddock estimates—then principals with financial exposure across the grid face conflicts in junior driver placements, team orders during Academy races, and sponsor hospitality access. The FIA regulates car dimensions. It does not regulate board seats.
Brown's timing is clean. He writes the letter the same week Liberty's Q1 earnings call, where CFO Brian Wendling noted F1's "structural advantages in franchise value growth." The structural advantage evaporates if team ownership becomes a daisy chain of cross-holdings and whispered understandings. The people pricing $500m bridge rounds into second-tier teams want clarity. The people considering majority bids at $3.2bn want rules. The people already holding 12% of two teams want silence.
What to watch: Sulayem's response by the Monaco Grand Prix paddock in two weeks, where team principals hold their pre-summer governance meetings. Brown has allies—Fred Vasseur at Ferrari, James Vowles at Williams—but the votes sit with teams who benefit from flexibility. The technical regulations for 2026 power units are settled. The commercial terms are not. Expect a working group announcement by July, draft language by September, and a final rule that either freezes the board as-is or forces $400-600m in aggregate divestitures across four teams.
The FIA has spent three years debating T-tray ride height sensors. It has spent zero minutes drafting an ownership policy. Brown's letter puts a clock on the latter.
The takeaway
F1's lack of multi-team ownership rules creates **$18bn** governance exposure as private capital and principals explore cross-holdings before **2026** Concorde reset.
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