Seven-time Formula 1 world champion is keen to get involved in MotoGP
Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei says Formula 1 champion Lewis Hamilton asked about buying a MotoGP team after news of the American firm’s takeover of the series was announced.
In April of this year, F1 owner Liberty announced a deal to purchase majority ownership of MotoGP worth €4.2 billion, which it hopes to complete at the end of 2024 once it has gained approval from the European Union’s antitrust board.
Last month, Liberty announced it had sold off F1 shares worth $825 million to help complete the acquisition.
In wake of the announcement, Maffei said in May Liberty had received “an outpouring of interest” from manufacturers about getting involved in MotoGP.
In recent months there were rumours that Hamilton – a lifelong MotoGP fan – was looking to buy the Gresini Racing squad, though he rubbished this and noted “I haven’t looked that far into” ownership of a team when asked about it.
In a Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference, Maffei said Hamilton did approach Liberty following news of its MotoGP takeover about owning a team.
“I think MotoGP is an unbelievably exciting product,” Maffei began.
“To see people riding motorcycles at 220mph, six inches from each other is wild. And the overtaking there is incredibly impressive.
“And it’s an exciting product. It’s unfortunately one that is too little known in the United States, and around the world there is interest in Asia and places.
“But the real heart of it has been Spain, Italy, to some degree France. I think there’s an opportunity to expand it.”
He added: “When we announced it, we had immediately people call up and say ‘I want to buy a team’, including people like Lewis Hamilton.
“Why? Because they saw what happened in Formula 1 and they want to follow.
“We had major distributors call up and say ‘we want to be involved’, and unfortunately I had to tell them ‘we really can’t talk about it until we get EU approval’. We’d love to talk once we get it.”
It has long been thought that one of the first moves for Liberty when it officially owns MotoGP will be to boost its presence in America.
Between 2008 and 2011, when F1 had no races in the US, MotoGP visited the country twice – and in 2013 it even staged three events there.
In recent years, Liberty has been able to add three American races to the F1 calendar.
Despite a long history of success for American riders at the very top of motorcycle grand prix racing, interest in the series has waned over the years, with the US GP in Austin one of the more poorly attended races on the current MotoGP calendar.
Replicating what it managed with F1 is something Liberty believes is possible with MotoGP in America.
“We saw what we were able to do with Formula 1 by telling the stories, making them humanised, making the stories larger than just about the car, the technology, but also about what the drivers were doing, what was going on behind the scenes – telling those stories, making sure the world understood the breadth of what was going on,” Maffei says.
“But we also did a lot of things to improve the TV experience, improving what you could see on the screen, making our fans understand the story better.
“All of those are things that can be helped here. And I think, frankly, growing in the US.
“They have one race in Austin, for which they receive relatively modest revenues from TV and the like.
“I think there is an opportunity to improve that, there’s an opportunity perhaps for a second race in the US.
“Those are opportunities that are interesting in ways that look familiar to us from Formula 1 and hopefully we can replicate those attractively.”
Liberty’s hopes of snaring American interest again have been dealt some boosts over the past few seasons.
First, it has a frontrunning grand prix rider in Joe Roberts racing in Moto2, while in MotoGP the US-owned Trackhouse Racing squad joined the grid in 2024.
Behind the scenes, former NBA chief Dan Rossomondo was installed as Chief Commercial Officer in 2023.
