The team that stands to lose most in the redistribution of Formula 1 revenues is Mercedes, because Liberty Media is believed to be offering Ferrari an annual payment of $40 million for its heritage value to the sport, plus $10 for being an engine supplier. This will mean that Ferrari would lose around $100 million in special payments, but would get back $50 million plus around $25 million in increased prize funds. This the overall loss to the Italian team would be only $25 million and, if Ferrari and Fiat were to collaborate on technology, the increase in money by way of Sauber would help to offset the overall impact.
The problem is that Mercedes Benz does not have any obvious secondary brand to support in F1 to reduce the budgetary impact and to create the opportunity for another F1 team to push Mercedes products. It might be possible for a deal which would see a team such as Force India or Williams brought more into the Mercedes orbit, and for the AMG and Concept EQ brands to be split between the two.
There was much discussion some time ago after the possibility of starting a Mercedes Junior Team, to counter the influence of the Red Bull-Toro Rosso alliance and the Ferrari-Haas alignment. At the time the idea was to use the team to help develop youngsters, such as Esteban Ocon and George Russell and prepare them to move up to the big team, in much the same way as Red Bull has done with its teams. That would also offer the company the chance to develop new skills amongst its staff. At the time the suggestion was that the team might be headed by James Vowles, who is currently the chief strategist at Brackley.
Source: JSBM
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