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In July, it was reported by GPOne that the seven-time F1 world champion sought to buy into Gresini Racing.
That came off the back of Liberty Media, the F1 rights holder, announcing plans to buy 86 per cent of MotoGP promoter Dorna Sports in a deal worth more than $6.3 billion (USD $4.2 billion), pending regulatory approvals.
Maffei spoke at length about the state of Liberty Media in relation to Formula 1 and MotoGP at a Goldman Sachs Communacopia & Technology Conference on Wednesday where he confirmed Hamilton’s interest.
Maffei said Hamilton was among a slew of interested parties wanting to be involved with MotoGP having seen the growth Formula 1 enjoyed globally.
“When we announced – it’s a great example – we had immediately people call up and say, I want to buy a team, including people like Lewis Hamilton. Why? Because they saw what had happened in Formula 1, and they want to follow,” said Maffei.
“We had major distributors call them and say we want to be involved. And unfortunately, I had to tell them, Well, we really can’t talk about until we get EU approval, but we’d love to talk once we get it.
“I think there’s an opportunity when you’re at the league level to take advantage of those changes that you can make,” Maffei added.
“At a team level, in general, teams don’t cash flow as well. It’s not absolutely true. NFL teams cash flow pretty well, but in general, we’re still too traditional in wanting that cash flow in addition your ability to change the dynamics, to set the stage and do the things that you want are far better, far easier, more manageable.
“Still takes time, but you can get it done at the league level in a way that’s very difficult at the team level.”
Hamilton has had interests outside of F1 via his Extreme E team X44, which shuttered earlier this year. He also owns a stake in NFL team the Denver Broncos.
In August, it was revealed that Liberty Media had sold a $1.2 billion slice of F1 to fund its MotoGP acquisition.
Maffei spoke positively about the financial situation for both Formula 1 and MotoGP.
“We have lowered the the leverage of Formula 1, the parent dramatically over the last several years, partly through success and partly through generating cash flow to finance the $4.2 billion purchase of MotoGP,” Maffei explained.
“We raised just under a billion dollars of equity money and the rest is going to be financed on our balance sheet, and their balance sheet leverage will still be relatively modest compared to the historical numbers which have been managed to both companies.
“I think for a little bit of time, we’ll focus on cash flow management. We’ve run return of capital through equity repurchase and that’s certainly on the table, but we’ll also look at other synergistic opportunities.
“We have returned capital, and we do expect we will be repurchased in the future. That’s been a Liberty Hallmark, and I don’t want our shareholders to think that’s something we’re walking away from.”
