Toto Wolff has sold a minority portion of his one-third stake in the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team to George Kurtz, the billionaire co-founder and CEO of CrowdStrike. The transaction amount was not disclosed. Wolff retains his majority personal holding and his role as team principal and CEO. Mercedes-Benz AG holds 33.3%, INEOS owns 33.3% since its 2020 entry, and Wolff's adjusted stake now sits below 33.3% after the Kurtz carve-out.
Kurtz, worth an estimated $8 billion, built CrowdStrike into a $90 billion market-cap cybersecurity platform and took it public in 2019. He races vintage Porsches in historic series and has written checks into motorsport before—he owns a piece of the McLaren Artura development program and sits on the advisory board for a boutique collector-car insurer. This is his first recorded exposure to a contemporary F1 constructor. The deal was structured as a direct purchase from Wolff, not a dilutive capital raise, meaning Mercedes' balance sheet remains unchanged.
The timing is clean. Mercedes posted $468 million in revenue for 2023, per its most recent Daimler Truck consolidation filings, down from $512 million in 2022 as the team finished second in constructors behind Red Bull. Wolff, now 52, has run the team since 2013 and negotiated his current ownership structure in stages: he bought in for roughly €30 million in 2013, then added increments through 2020. His net worth is estimated north of $580 million, most of it illiquid and tied to the team. A partial exit at today's valuation—F1 teams are trading at 12-16x revenue in private comps, putting Mercedes around $6-7.5 billion—gives Wolff liquidity without surrender. He stays operational. Kurtz gets a seat.
The second-order effect is strategic, not financial. CrowdStrike's core business is endpoint detection and breach containment for enterprises that cannot afford downtime. F1 teams now operate as rolling IT infrastructures: Mercedes alone runs 80+ servers trackside, transmits 3GB of telemetry per race weekend, and syncs real-time data between Brackley, Brixworth, and the pit wall across 18 encrypted channels. Kurtz's involvement suggests a technical services arrangement is likely folded into the equity deal—CrowdStrike logo placement, yes, but also backend hardening against the espionage-grade cyber threats that F1 teams quietly face. Rival constructors have reported phishing attempts, CAD file exfiltration, and supply-chain compromises in recent years. None of it is public. All of it is expensive.
The governance implication is murkier. Wolff now answers, in some measure, to four parties: Daimler's board, INEOS chairman Jim Ratcliffe, the operational executive team he hired, and Kurtz. The INEOS entry in 2020 came with Ratcliffe demanding veto rights on major capex and driver signings. Kurtz's deal structure is not disclosed, but minority stakes at this level typically carry board observation rights and information access. If Wolff wants to greenlight a $150 million wind-tunnel expansion or extend Lewis Hamilton at $55 million AAV, the room now has one more billionaire in it.
Worth noting: Wolff has consistently declined offers to sell his full position. He rebuffed a $1.2 billion bid from a consortium in 2022, per sources close to the process. This partial exit reads less like an off-ramp and more like portfolio hygiene—take some carry, bring in someone who solves a problem. Kurtz gets a constructor. Mercedes gets a CISO who races.
What to watch: CrowdStrike branding at the Australian Grand Prix in March, the earliest a new commercial deal could appear on livery if the contract includes activation. Wolff's next contract extension, currently set to expire at the end of 2026, will clarify whether this was a liquidity event or the start of a transition. And the paddock will be reading the technical partnership—whether CrowdStrike personnel are embedded at Brackley, and whether other teams call Austin asking for the same.
The deal closes before the season opener. Wolff is still the operator. Kurtz is now on the cap table. F1 teams are no longer just automotive or drinks companies. They are software companies that happen to go racing, and the people writing checks now reflect that.
The takeaway
Wolff's partial exit brings cybersecurity infrastructure and capital into Mercedes without disrupting operational control—watch for CrowdStrike backend integration by Melbourne.
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