{"id":237026,"date":"2025-10-24T13:42:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T13:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/237026\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T13:42:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T13:42:07","slug":"editors-note-how-f1s-new-owners-helped-add-another-1-billion-to-lawrence-strolls-net-worth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/237026\/","title":{"rendered":"Editor\u2019s Note: How F1\u2019s new owners helped add another $1-billion to Lawrence Stroll\u2019s net worth"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Report on Business magazine editor Dawn Calleja.Daniel Ehrenworth\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

Lawrence Stroll has always been an enigma. The Globe and Mail\u2019s first mention of him was in 1990, in a story about the Canadian launch of Tommy Hilfiger\u2019s menswear collection. Stroll is named as Hilfiger\u2019s Montreal-based partner and chair of his company. The next brief nod came in 1998, when Hilfiger bought back the Canadian operation from Stroll and his partner for a mix of cash and stock.<\/p>\n

The next summer, Stroll landed at No. 36 on Canadian Business magazine\u2019s inaugural Rich 100, with a net worth of $610 million\u2014a combination of Hilfiger money and his returns as master licencee for Ralph Lauren in Europe. The brief write-up also mentioned that Stroll collected Ferraris and raced on the amateur circuit.<\/p>\n

In 2000, Stroll dropped to No. 67, having lost nearly $200 million. Once again, his love of fast cars loomed large with this not-so-prophetic gem: \u201cStroll collects and races Ferraris, but given Hilfiger\u2019s slumping profits…he may soon be strapped for gas money.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not quite. Today, Forbes pegs Stroll\u2019s net worth at US$3.8 billion, making him the world\u2019s 1,048th richest human. Much of that wealth came from his dealings with luxury brand Michael Kors, whose 2011 IPO was a windfall. But a substantial portion is due to his Aston Martin F1 team, which he bought out of bankruptcy in 2018 and is now valued at US$3.2 billion.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not due solely to Stroll\u2019s prowess. The year before he became an F1 owner, Formula One was bought by Colorado-based Liberty Media for US$8 billion. Fans fretted that the americani would ruin the sport. But the truth was, both viewers and sponsors had been in decline for years.<\/p>\n

Liberty added new races (including two in the U.S.), loosened its video-sharing rules and, most crucially, launched Drive to Survive in 2019. It was a stroke of marketing genius that turned drivers into superstars. Was Lewis Hamilton famous pre-DTS? Of course\u2014he won seven Drivers\u2019 Championships with Mercedes (before defecting to Ferrari in 2025). But these days, he\u2019s a bona fide member of the glitterati: He designed a capsule collection with Dior and co-chaired the 2025 Met Gala. When his bulldog, Roscoe, died in late September, it made global headlines.<\/p>\n

Drive to Survive\u2019s seven seasons are now available in more than 190 countries, and it\u2019s won two Emmys for what is essentially a long-format ad, albeit one that\u2019s slick as hell and a near-perfect melding of on- and off-track drama. (Don\u2019t even get me started on the ridiculous, and ridiculously enjoyable, feature film F1, which so far has grossed US$626 million worldwide.) <\/p>\n

F1\u2019s strategy has been remarkably effective: In 2024, Nielsen Sports put its global fan base at 826 million\u2014a year-over-year gain of 90 million new fans. And all those new fans have translated to major sponsorship opportunities for even mid teams like Aston Martin. <\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Now, Stroll is funnelling those extra hundreds of millions into building an F1 champion. Find out how in Grant Robertson\u2019s cover story, \u201cFast and furious.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

And about that cover: Stroll was photographed in May at the Monaco Grand Prix by official photographer Lewis Bryant, one of the rare few allowed trackside in a sport notorious for its secrecy \u2014 part of what makes it so much fun. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Report on Business magazine editor Dawn Calleja.Daniel Ehrenworth\/The Globe and Mail Lawrence Stroll…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":237027,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,2922,82],"class_list":["post-237026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-noastack","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}