Battle of the Billionaires – who has the most money?

| Photographer Credit: Bruce Jenkins

As the dust settles over the ‘forced’ sale of Vijay Mallya’s pink Formula One team, some of the machinations behind the scene have come to light. They bear a closer look for anyone who also follows New Zealand’s premier single-seater championship, the Toyota Racing Series.

Driver Sergio Perez, who is owed millions in salary, took legal action in late July to place the team in administration. Force India traces its lineage all the way back to the Jordan equipe that gave Michael Schumacher his F1 break Now it appears he did so in order to save it from complete collapse.

Canadian fashion mogul Lawrence Stroll heads a consortium that has paid an undisclosed but substantial sum to rescue the team. That move is expected to pave the way for current Williams driver Lance Stroll to waka-jump into a Force drive next year. Stroll won the Toyota Racing Series in 2015 and went on to win Formula 3 Europe the following year.

Nicolas Latifi (TRS 2013, 9th) is the test driver for the team, but his dad Michael is having a bob each way’, taking a 10 per cent stake in McLaren Holdings worth $270m. Latifi was turning laps at the Hungaroring last week, and the team was one of two running 2019 aero parts – business as usual.

Meanwhile, there’s even more cash behind Nikita Mazepin (TRS 2015, 18th), who took over the cockpit for the second half of the test. The young Russian’s father Dmitry is worth an estimated $7bn as chairman of Uralchem, was one of the names ‘leaked’ as the team entered administration, and is likely to now be looking elsewhere to invest in his son’s future.

Force India was already unstable, but significant regulatory changes to chassis design, tyre specification and aerodynamics have driven up costs for al teams. This has created opportunities for billionaire Dads to secure teams and gain access to drives for their progeny.

None of which helps Brendon Hartley or rising stars like Marcus Armstrong, whose resources are comparatively limited but whose talent is undisputed.

Mark Baker has been working in automotive PR and communications for more than two decades. For much longer than that he has been a motorsport journalist, photographer and competitor, witness to most of the most exciting and significant motorsport trends and events of the mid-late 20th Century. His earliest memories of motorsport were trips to races at Ohakea in the early 1960s, and later of annual summer pilgrimages to watch Shellsport racers and Mini 7s at Bay Park and winter sorties into forests around Kawerau and Rotorua to see the likes of Russell Brookes, Ari Vatanen and Mike Marshall ply their trade in group 4 Escorts. Together with Murray Taylor and TV producer/director Dave Hedge he has been responsible for helping to build New Zealand’s unique Toyota Racing Series into a globally recognized event brand under category managers Barrie and Louise Thomlinson. Now working for a variety of automotive and mainstream commercial clients, Mark has a unique perspective on recent motor racing history and the future career paths of our best and brightest young racers.

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