The Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund (PFI) continue to target buying F1 despite drivers including seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton having already expressed their concern about the country’s human rights record. The PFI first considered buying the franchise last year and valued the asset at a staggering £16billion.
Bloomberg reported last year that F1’s owners the Liberty Media Corp were not interested in selling the franchise last year, but the PFI have continued their efforts to target its purchase. Liberty Media paid £3.55bn for F1 in 2017 and the franchise has been a worthy investment with the sport’s popularity booming and the stock trading price of F1 doubling over the last four years.
The franchise now has a market capitalisation of about £12.1bn which continues to rise. Saudi Arabia first hosted a round of the F1 series in 2021 despite concern from Human Rights Watch about what they felt was “a deliberate strategy to deflect attention from its pervasive human rights abuses” by holding a race in Jeddah.
On arrival in Jeddah former world champion Hamilton expressed his own concern about the country’s human rights record despite having a “warm welcome from the people on the ground”. He said: “We are duty-bound to make sure that we try to help raise awareness for certain issues that we’ve seen, particularly human rights in these countries that we’re going to.
READ MORE: Lewis Hamilton not comfortable racing in Saudi Arabia amid human rights concerns
