Mercedes books £166.7m operating profit while McLaren reports a £42.8m loss in 2025 F1 team accounts

Mercedes made a £166.7m operating profit in 2025 and McLaren a £42.8m operating loss, as team accounts showed revenue rising at both.

Mercedes lifted revenue to £633.4m from £632.1m in 2024, and operating profit from £156.2m, BlackBook Motorsport said in its review of the accounts.

Staff costs at Mercedes rose 26% to £157.5m while headcount went from 1,323 to 1,348. Average cost per employee moved from £94,500 to £116,900.

The team paid £125m in dividends to its owners, and a £250m credit facility available until December 2028 remains undrawn. Research and development took £145.9m, or 23% of turnover.

McLaren’s revenue rose to £588.5m from £488.4m, yet it swung from a £48.5m operating profit in 2024 to the loss.

BlackBook said the loss largely came from a staff incentive scheme that ties payouts to the team’s valuation and on-track results. The payout reached £136.2m in 2025.

Without that scheme, McLaren would have made a profit of about £93.5m, BlackBook said.

McLaren was also fully acquired by McLaren Group in 2025. The team took on a £110.6m loan as part of that, repayable on demand with interest.

Red Bull’s revenue rose 6.5% to £523.5m from £491.7m, and operating profit to £24.5m from £21.3m.

Administrative costs at Red Bull went from £90.6m to £174.1m. The accounts include £67m in compensation to former team principal Christian Horner, who was twice cleared of claims made by a female employee.

Capital spending at Red Bull was £67.9m, a level BlackBook said has stayed consistently high over three seasons.

Ferrari does not publish standalone figures for its F1 team, which sit inside its Italian operating company’s accounts. BlackBook cited Sportico’s estimate of $926m revenue and $194m operating profit for 2025, against a Forbes estimate of $670m and $80m for 2024.

Central payments are a large part of the picture. Liberty Media’s full-year results put F1 revenue up 14% to $3.9bn, with operating income up 28% to $632m.

Team payments excluding Concorde incentive payments were $1,400m in 2025, against $1,266m in 2024, Liberty said in its filing. It said the rise was driven by growth in F1 profitability.

Those payments fell to 59.7% of pre-team payment Adjusted OIBDA, a measure of earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, from 61.5% in 2024.

The 2025 accounts are among the latest motorsport business disclosures. BlackBook noted that Sauber does not reveal full financial information, and that Haas and Cadillac do not report the costs of their US operations.

Liberty said it signed a Concorde Agreement with all teams and the FIA through 2030.