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.

“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.

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.

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?