Toto Wolff and Christian Horner are still top dogs in the wage department despite a host of high-profile F1 team principal positions being filled over the past few days. The Mercedes and Red Bull bosses have both overseen runs of tremendous success with their respective teams and years of loyalty seemingly comes with its perks.
A domino effect of activity was kick-started on Tuesday when Frederic Vasseur was confirmed as the heir to Mattia Binotto’s Ferrari throne. The ousted Italian oversaw a troubled season, during which the Prancing Horse enjoyed superb pace but were let down by a series of calamitous team decisions.
Shortly afterwards, big changes were announced at McLaren with team principal Andreas Seidl leaving to take over as chief executive of the Sauber group, which owns the Alfa Romeo F1 team. The German had been in charge since 2019 but, having taken up a different role, Vasseur’s old Alfa hot seat remains vacant.
Former executive director Andrea Stella was internally promoted to take over at McLaren but things didn’t stop there. Over at Williams, Jost Capito stepped down after two years at the helm to create a second team boss vacancy ahead of the 2023 season.
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According to French outlet Sportune, the aforementioned newbies will pocket a minimum of £5.2million per year in salary while leading their respective teams. Although the sum is nothing to be scoffed at, it pales in comparison to the wages pocketed by Red Bull and Mercedes bosses Horner and Wolff.
Horner, who took the reins at Red Bull way back in 2005, has overseen five triumphs in the Constructors’ Championship during his tenure, including a dominant one in 2022 with Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez coming up trumps. As a reward, he supposedly banks up to £10.4m per annum.
Wolff’s pay packet is even more lucrative. The Austrian took charge of the most dominant run in F1 history as the Silver Arrows scooped up eight consecutive team titles between 2014 and 2021, putting him on a reported wage of at least £13.9m per year. The 50-year-old also owns a stake in the team, taking his total net worth to over £400m.
Tension has soared in recent years between the two highest-paid bosses on the F1 grid, with Wolff and Horner going back and forth amid emotional battles for the sport’s top prizes. “Do I like [the mind games]? No. Is it part of the sport? Yes,” Horner explained to Formule 1 magazine earlier this year.
“I don’t know if I’m good at it, but I have a great love for the sport. I grew up in this industry and I think what you do on the track is the most important thing that matters. When we were fighting Sebastian Vettel against Fernando Alonso for the World Championship, Stefano Domenicali was the team boss of Ferrari.
“At the time, the competition was of a different, let’s say, ‘gentleman’s level’. Last year was intense both on and off the track. I think Toto plays it differently – he’s a different kind of animal.”
