The richest men in motor racing

Posted on

| Written by

I’ve just had a look through the Sunday Times’ annual list of the 1,000 richest people in Britain to see who they reckon the richest Britons in motor racing are.

Here are the ones I was able to find – do let me know if you think I’ve missed any. No prizes for guessing who came out on top…

24th Bernie Ecclestone (and Slavica Ecclestone) £2,400m – Owns the commercial rights to F1
136th Paddy McNally £610m – Former owner of Allsports which sells advertising signage at F1 races
214th Lawrence Tomlinson £400m – Runs care homes and owns Team LNT which runs Le Mans Endurance Series and Formula Ford teams
558th Martin Birrane £144m – Runs Lola and owns Modello Park racing circuit.
616th The Marquess of Bute (Johnny Dumfries) £125m – Aristocrat who drove for Lotus alongside Ayrton Senna in 1986
616th Tom Wheatcroft £125m – Former owner of Donington Park which held the 1993 European Grand Prix
644th Flavio Briatore £120m – Team boss at Renault and owns several business interests including his Billionaire brand and QPR football club
644th Eddie Irvine £120m – 1999 championship runner-up and former team mate of Michael Schumacher who made money out of property after retiring from F1 six years ago
701st Paul Stoddart £115 – Australian who owned Minardi from 2001-2005 and made his money running an airline
724th Ron Dennis £110m – Mclaren boss whose estimated wealth grew by £30m since last year despite the spygate episode

Also at 158th I noticed John Christodoulou – I wondered if he was related to Formula Renault drivers Riki and Adam?

There were some ore familiar names in the list of richest young people (those aged 30 and under):

9th Valentino Rossi £75m – Italian multiple Moto GP champion who lives in Britain
13th Jenson Button £35m – Honda F1 driver
34th Lewis Hamilton £15m – McLaren F1 driver
65th Dan Wheldon £7m – British Indy Car champion and Indy 500 winner
65th James Toseland £7m – British Moto GP rider

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

17 comments on “The richest men in motor racing”

  1. they save money doesn’t grow on trees. but it seems the F1 tree bares very rich fruit. got a few spare bob gov’?

  2. Johnny Dumfries, now I didn’t know that! I had read somewhere about Eddie Irvine becoming ‘stinking’ rich selling property, but I never knew he had become than well off.
    I also read that Ron Dennis had seperated from his wife, Lisa, so if that goes to court I guess he can kiss good bye to last year’s $60 million profit then. Dear oh dear!Three words in your ear Ronald, Isle Of Man, and get it their quickly mate.
    As always, great information Keith, keep it coming! 

  3. Umm,  has Schumi lost his fortune gambling on the horses?

  4. Arnet – Schumi’s not a Brit, hence not on a list of rich Brits.

  5. Can’t Bernie spare a couple of pounds for Super Agri?

  6. Sorry….  Aguri

  7. Keith, I’m starting to think that you should follow in the footsteps of Ollie and ‘me’…

    …Get an edit button!  :)

  8. It’s amazing to think the Irv the Swirve has more money than Ron.

  9. Irv did not have to pay 100 mil fine to Max :-)

  10. and I always thought Slavica Ecclestone was attracted to Bernies amazing looks….. ;)

  11. Alex, Irvine was a property developer before being in racing…. or during.  That is why he is loaded.

    He only wanted to race so he could pull more easily in Monte Carlo.

  12. Chalky, that reminds me of the Mrs Merton interview with Debbie McGee when she said, "What first attracted you to short, balding millionaire Paul Daniels?"…….

  13. Julian, I think you’ll notice that there’s actually quite a few non-brits on the list…. I could be wrong, of course, but I’m sure even with that dodgy accent, that Flavio isn’t from Bradford…

  14. I was just reading from the top of the list where it says "richest Britons in motor racing", but yeah it is odd that Flavio is there. Does he have to register for tax purposes in order to own QPR or something? I’m not au fait with foreign ownership rules in the UK.

  15. I think if they own property in the UK or work here then they’re counted. Schumacher doesn’t, so he’s not on the list.

  16. I believe Flavio has a house in London (he has a house almost everywhere else…), which would explain his presence as an "honourary Brit" on the list.

    I was about to ask why Coulthard wasn’t on the list, but of course he’s over 30 now, so suddenly he’d need a lot more money to feature on the main list rather than the "youth" one…

Comments are closed.