18/09/2019
NEWS STORY
New sponsors, including British American Tobacco, have seen the McLaren F1 team's revenues rise by 9.2% in the first six months of the year.
The news contrasts with last year's performance which saw revenues down by 36.5% to £132.8m as it began its partnership with Renault after parting company with Honda.
Other than new sponsors, the improvement in the team's finances has also been fuelled by the improved performance on track, the Woking outfit sixth in the standings last year, having finished tenth the previous season.
The F1 team represents 10.9% of McLaren's total revenue in the opening six months of 2019, with 84.8% coming from McLaren Automotive and the remainder from its Applied Technologies division.
The performance of McLaren Automotive is particularly impressive, the Daily Mail revealing that revenue was up 36.4% to £697.6m to the end of June.
Much of this is down to the success of its top-of-the-range Senna, which was launched in May last year.
In the second half of 2018 sales stood at just ten, but in the first six months of this year a further 217 were sold, helping to fuel a £176.7m increase in revenue.
Last year McLaren delivered 4,829 cars, a figure it had previously targeted for 2022. As a result the company has raised the target again, to 6,000 cars annually by 2025, company documents stating that it is 'on plan to deliver the targets'.
Earlier this year, the Woking company launched 'Spider' editions of the 600LT and 720S two-seaters and announced another car, limited to just 399 units and more expensive than the Senna, and with this in mind £151m has been invested in developing the product range.
The McLaren group is controlled by Bahrain's Mumtalakat sovereign wealth fund, which has a 57.7% stake in it, while 14.7% is owned by the Saudi TAG Group, 10% by Canadian tycoon Michael Latifi and the remainder held by minority investors.