Who Owns F1?

Formula One is owned by Liberty Media, the American group, which bought it in January 2017. Companies House shows the British chain but never reaches Liberty: Formula One Administration Limited is held by Formula One Asset Management Limited, which is held by Alpha Prema UK Limited at only 25–50% — a takeover codename from the previous owner, still on the register a decade later. Liberty Media is itself controlled by John Malone through high-vote shares. Ownership verified 6 September 2026.

Who owns F1?

The commercial rights to Formula One belong to the Formula One group, ultimately Liberty Media Corporation. The sport’s rules and regulation are a separate matter entirely, and belong to the FIA.

The British companies sit at No. 2 St James’s Market, London:

1. FORMULA ONE ADMINISTRATION LIMITED (03737094), incorporated 17 March 1999
2. controlled at 75%+ by Formula One Asset Management Limited (04169896)
3. which is controlled by Alpha Prema UK Limited — at more than 25% but not more than 50%

The chain weakens as it climbs. The top UK entry is not a controlling holding at all, so the register stops without ever naming a controller, let alone Liberty Media.

Ownership and control structure

Above the UK companies sits Delta Topco, the Jersey-registered holding company that has been Formula One’s parent through two changes of owner, and above that Liberty Media in the United States.

Alpha Prema is worth dwelling on. It is a bid-vehicle codename from CVC Capital Partners‘ takeover of Formula One in 2006 — a name invented for a transaction, never a business, and still sitting on the register in 2026 under an owner who bought the sport in 2017. This site has now found the same pattern at Chelsea (Blueco), Asda (Bellis), Cadbury (Chromium), Boots (Blazing Star) and Aston Villa (Recon Football). Acquisition codenames outlive the acquisitions, and they are among the most reliable fingerprints of a leveraged buyout on the UK register.

Liberty Media itself has been substantially reshaped. It split off Liberty Live on 15 December 2025, reincorporated in Nevada in May 2026, and now holds essentially two assets: Formula One and MotoGP, roughly 84% of which it acquired in July 2025. Liberty Media is today close to being a pure motorsport company.

Key investors or controlling entities

Liberty Media is listed on NASDAQ, but it is not widely controlled. John Malone, its chairman, holds high-vote Series B shares that give him voting power far in excess of his economic stake — the vote-multiplier mechanism this site has documented at Alphabet and Roblox, applied to a portfolio of media assets.

So the ultimate controller of Formula One is one American investor, through a share class most Liberty shareholders cannot buy.

Two things are commonly mistaken for ownership of F1 and are not. The teams — Ferrari, Mercedes, Red Bull, McLaren — own themselves and hold commercial agreements with the Formula One group; they are counterparties, not shareholders. And the FIA owns the sporting regulations and the championship’s governance, while the commercial rights were leased to the Formula One group under a hundred-year agreement dating from 2001. Neither the teams nor the governing body owns the business.

How the organisation is structured

The group is split by function across several companies. Formula One Administration handles the commercial operation; Formula One Management runs the race promotion, broadcasting and logistics; Formula One Digital Media (08915039, incorporated 2014) covers the streaming and digital business built under Liberty.

Teams are separately owned companies, and several are visible on the register with histories of their own. MERCEDES-BENZ GRAND PRIX LTD (00787446) at Brackley was incorporated in 1964, long before Mercedes returned to the sport. ALPINE RACING LIMITED (01806337) at Enstone was previously named Renault F1 Limited. Both are covered on this site’s Mercedes and Renault profiles.

Those company numbers are the sport’s real institutional memory: the teams change name with their sponsors and owners every few years, but the companies persist, and the register keeps the trail.

Ownership history

Formula One’s commercial rights were assembled by Bernie Ecclestone from the 1970s onwards, and their consolidation into a saleable business is the single most consequential thing that has happened to the sport commercially.

• 2001 — the FIA leases the commercial rights to Ecclestone’s group for 100 years.
• 2006 — CVC Capital Partners acquires control, through the vehicle whose name survives on the register as Alpha Prema.
• January 2017 — Liberty Media buys Delta Topco for a reported $4.4bn including debt; Ecclestone is removed as chief executive.
• 15 December 2025 — the Liberty Live split-off; Liberty Media narrows to F1 and MotoGP.

CVC’s eleven years are the period most often cited in criticism of the sport’s finances, and Liberty’s purchase marked a deliberate change of approach — toward broadcasting, the American market and the digital business rather than race-hosting fees alone.

Sources and verification

All company numbers, incorporation dates and the three PSC entries with their bands come from Companies House and can be checked by number.

Two limits, and the first is substantial. The UK register never names Liberty Media. Its highest entry, Alpha Prema at 25–50%, is not even a controlling stake, so no British filing establishes who owns Formula One. That connection rests on Liberty Media’s SEC filings and the 2017 transaction announcements.

And the searchable name is close to useless: Companies House returns unrelated businesses including Formula One Auto Centres Limited (01437311), a Stevenage motor servicing company registered in 1979, and Formula One Films Limited, registered in 1971. Companies House does not verify most filed information.