BEING an F1 team principal guarantees a fair wedge.
They are paid huge salaries, with Red Bull supremo Christian Horner earning £8million-per-year, while Mercedes rival Toto Wolff is said to have a salary worth around £7million.
With those great pay packets comes great responsibilty, with those at the top driving things behind the scenes while being teh public face of the operation.
But, who is the richest?
Join SunSport in counting down the ultimate F1 team principals rich list, from estimates researched online.
10. Bruno Famin, £500,000
Famin took over the reigns as team principal for Alpine on an interim basis in 2023.
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He will continue in the role this season, but is a relative newbie to the game.
The Frenchman has held a number of leading roles in motorsport, including as director of Peugeot Sport.
He originally joined Alpine in 2022 and served as CEO in charge of engine development.
9. Ayao Komatsu, £650,000
Similarly to Famin, Komatsu has an established career in motor racing.
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He enjoyed spells with BAR and Lotus until moving to Haas in 2016 as their trackside engineering director, following Romain Grosjean.
Clearly, the American team believe in the Japanese engineer.
Back in January, he was promoted to team principal after the departure of the legendary Guenther Steiner.
8. Mike Krack £800,000
Aston Martin moved to replace Otmar Szafnauer with Krack in 2022.
In truth, though, he is a seasoned pro – having worked with BMW Sauber from the mid-2000’s.
He held a variety of roles, including overseeing their Formula E, IMSA and GT programme.
With Aston Martin continuing to improve, he could be higher on the list this time next year.
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7. Laurent Mekies, £1million
Mekkies was in a cushy role at Ferrari as their sporting director.
But, fancying a challenge, he took on the role of team principal with AlphaTauri from January, taking over from Franz Tost.
“A new adventure starts now, and it is with a great sense of gratefulness that I go from a very special racing family to another very special racing family,” he said on joining Red Bull Racing’s sister team.
Before joining Ferrari he was safety director at the FIA and deputy race director.
6. Andrea Stella, £1.2million
Last season, Stella took over the reigns at the famous McLaren team from Andreas Seidl.
A graduate in aerospace engineering at La Sapienza University in Rome, with a PhD in mechanical engineering with an experimental study on fluid dynamics of flames, he began as performance engineer at Ferrari in 2000.
Between 2002-2006, the Italian worked with Michael Schumacher and then Kimi Raikkonen from 2007-2008.
He moved to McLaren in 2015 as head of race operations, before working his way up the ranks.
5. Fred Vasseur, £3.5million
Vasseur has one of the dream jobs – as principal of Scuderia Ferrari.
It’s a high-pressured role, which he jumped into in 2023 on a reported salary of £2.5million per-year – so, again, expect him to jump up this list in the years to come.
In the six years prior, Vasseur worked at Alfa Romeo Sauber and Renault as team boss.
Next year, he will be working with Lewis Hamilton.
4. James Vowles, £4million
Englishman Vowles came to Williams as team principal last season.
He was formerly Mercedes’ motorsport strategy director, until he took on the post.
He made his Formula 1 debut as an engineer for the Honda racing team before moving on as a strategist for Brawn GP.
James joined Williams at the end of 2022 and at the age of 44, is the youngest team principal on the grid, with an estimated £4million fortune.
3. Alessandro Alunni Bravi, £4million
In 2022, Alfa Romeo tried to break away from the traditional structure of team principal by appointing a management structure to oversee the team.
Heading that up is Alunni Bravi as team representative, an Italian who is also a qualified lawyer.
His duties pretty much echo that of team principal – he deals with F1 bosses and sponsors.
He was previously the team principal of the trident GP2 team and has served as a board member of Sauber since 2017.
2. Christian Horner, £50million
Red Bull Racing principal Horner is the highest paid on the F1 circuit – with an annual salary said to be in the region of £8million.
He’s been with the Austrians since 2005, and has successfully led them to nine titles.
Horner began in motorsport with aspirations to become a driver – and had some success in the late 90s – even founding his own team, but ended his driving career in 1998 at just 25.
Away from the grid, the Englishman is married to Spice Girl Geri and they share two homes, in Oxfordshire and Hertfordshire.
But his F1 career has been tainted after he was caught up in a texting probe involving female colleague.
1. Toto Wolff, £1.2billion
Top of the pile, with a staggering net worth, is the German Wolff.
Forbes listed him as a billionaire back in 2023, thanks mainly to his one-third stake in the Mercedes F1 operation along with parent company Daimler AG and ‘principal partners’ INEOS.
A banker before an F1 legend, more of Wolff’s wealth was built through two investment firms he founded.
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He paid $50million (about £40m) for his 30 per cent share in Mercedes in 2012, which is now believed to be substantially more.
Prior to that, he put money into Williams in 2009. He is miles ahead of his competitors.
Source: Motorsport - thesun.co.uk
