Maintaining a Formula One team has to be expensive and the salaries will be exorbitant. While the drivers earn quite a fair amount, the rest of the team also get massive pay checks. Recently, Austria’s Osterreich newspaper revealed that Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff is paid 8 million euros a year.
The information was based on the release of Mercedes’ balance sheet for the 2018 season. It even transpired that Mercedes spent 350 million euros to run the team for a year. In addition to that, they earned a revenue of 380 million euros, a 30 million profit for the title winning Formula 1 team.
The salaries of the team bosses were also revealed, with both Wolff and the late Niki Lauda earning 8 million euros each.
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“Formula 1 makes an important contribution to the brand’s status as the eighth most valuable in the world,” Mercedes reportedly said in the filing.
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There were also a number of rumours that Toto Wolff is in line to succeed Chase Carey as CEO of Formula One. Carey took over as the F1 supremo in 2017, on a three-year contract. So, his contract was set to expire at the end of the 2019 Formula One season. However, he does have an option for a twelve-month extension to cover the lead-in period to 2021.
According to RaceFans, Wolff’s Mercedes contract expires at the end of 2020. It is a little coincidental that his tenure coincides with Carey’s anticipated departure. So, this only serves to fan the flames even further and incite more speculation on the Austrian’s future.
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Mercedes’ situation is also fairly dicey, especially in the wake of the impending departure of Mercedes-Benz boss Dieter Zetsche. As it turns out, his successor Ola Källenius, believes in an electric future for the automotive industry. With Mercedes fielding a team in Formula E, how long will the Mercedes F1 team last?