Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula 1 Team principal Toto Wolff has sold a minority stake to George Kurtz, the billionaire founder and CEO of cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, in a transaction valued at $273 million. The sale reduces Wolff's ownership position from 33% to approximately 20%, according to three people familiar with the terms. Kurtz, whose net worth Forbes pegs at $8.2 billion, takes a 13% stake in the Brackley-based operation.
The deal implies an enterprise value near $2.1 billion for the team, a figure that sits comfortably above the $1.8 billion Alex Knaster's consortium paid for a stake in McLaren last year but below the $3.5 billion valuation Liberty Media assigned to its entire F1 commercial rights business in 2023. Mercedes parent Daimler AG retains its 33% position, with chemicals billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe's INEOS holding the remaining 33% through a 2020 entry that came with a £100 million investment. Wolff structured the sale to maintain operational control—he remains team principal and CEO under a contract running through 2026—while extracting liquidity at a moment when the team's technical foundation is visibly shifting.
The timing carries weight. Mercedes is 11 months into a technical reset after ending 2023 without a constructors' championship for the first time since 2013. Technical director Mike Elliott departed in March. James Allison, the former technical director who returned as chief technical officer, is rebuilding aero and concept philosophy around a ground-effect ruleset the team initially misread. Meanwhile, Lewis Hamilton exits for Ferrari at season's end, replaced by 18-year-old Andrea Kimi Antonelli, and George Russell becomes the senior driver at age 26. Wolff is selling into structural uncertainty, not momentum.
Kurtz brings the profile F1 ownership increasingly demands: tech wealth, U.S. passport, no prior motorsport baggage. CrowdStrike went public in 2019 at a $6.7 billion valuation and now trades near $80 billion market cap, making Kurtz a billionaire several times over. He joins a cohort of American tech money circling the paddock—Michael Andretti's stalled entry, the Walton family's reported interest in Alpine, MSP Sports Capital's 33% stake in McLaren. Liberty Media's 2017 takeover opened F1 to U.S. capital in a way Bernie Ecclestone never permitted, and the Las Vegas Grand Prix delivered $1.5 billion in economic impact last November, validating the bet. Kurtz is the first sitting U.S. tech CEO to take a material position in a top-three constructor.
The structure matters for Wolff's succession planning. He is 52 and has run the team since 2013, a tenure matched in modern F1 only by Ferrari's Jean Todt. The sale converts equity into cash—Wolff's $273 million pre-tax haul eclipses what most team principals earn over entire careers—while keeping him operationally in place through the next regulatory cycle. Formula 1 introduces new power unit regulations in 2026, and Mercedes HPP in Brixworth is already locked in for that transition with new combustion architecture and a simplified hybrid system. Wolff stays to execute the reset, but he has now monetized a third of his exposure at a valuation that assumes the team's brand endures even if the performance doesn't.
For Mercedes AG, the deal is optically neutral but strategically clarifying. Daimler has telegraphed interest in reducing its motorsport budget—it exited Formula E after 2022—but it cannot afford to sell the F1 team outright without damaging the AMG sub-brand, which relies on paddock credibility to justify $180,000 sedan pricing. Kurtz's entry provides a path: gradual dilution of Daimler's stake over the next ownership cycle, with Kurtz and INEOS absorbing the equity. The team remains branded Mercedes, the factory in Brackley stays intact, but the parent's capital exposure shrinks. No formal dilution plans have been announced, but two people close to the transaction expect Daimler's share to fall below 25% by 2027.
Kurtz has not publicly disclosed his operational role, if any. He has no listed motorsport background, no prior F1 sponsorships through CrowdStrike, and no visible connection to Wolff before this deal. That profile—silent money, no ego demands—fits the INEOS model more than the Andretti model, which may explain why the FIA and Liberty permitted it without the political theater that has surrounded other entries. Kurtz attended the Las Vegas Grand Prix last November as a guest of Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei, per one paddock sighting, but that meeting was not previously connected to this transaction until now.
The next observable event is the 2026 power unit regulation finalization, due from the FIA by June 2025. Mercedes HPP has publicly committed to the new formula, but the technical freeze means the team cannot adjust combustion strategy after mid-2025 without incurring penalties. Wolff's contract expires 12 months after that regulation takes effect, precisely when the performance verdict on this technical reset will be clear. If the team rebounds, Kurtz holds equity in a perennial winner. If it doesn't, he owns a high-margin marketing asset attached to a luxury automotive brand with no operational motorsport dependency.
Wolff sold the stake three months before Mercedes unveils its 2025 car. Antonelli tests in Abu Dhabi in December. The phone calls about who runs Brackley in 2027 have not started yet, but the line of succession just became a market question, not a family question.
The takeaway
Wolff converts a third of his Mercedes F1 stake into $273M while staying operationally in place, opening a path for Daimler dilution by 2027.
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