It was around a decade ago that Chad Hutchinson, a former US athlete turned investor, first looked into financing a Formula One racing team. But the onetime National Football League quarterback just could not get comfortable with the idea.
It was not just the teams’ lack of profitability that worried him but the dynamics of the motor racing series as a whole. The competitive balance was skewed in favour of the two or three highest-spending teams, and the also-rans struggled not only to turn a profit but to survive.
“There was no way to compete with a Ferrari or a Mercedes,” Hutchinson says. “Up until about three and a half years ago, I didn’t think it was an institutional grade asset class.”