The wealthiest Formula 1 driver on Earth

There was a great deal of controversy surrounding Canadian driver Lance Stroll past year. In the opinion of many, his billionaire father would be the only leverage to the young driver's career. This opinion seems to prevail in many countries, except Canada, I suppose. Time - that is, the 2018 season - will tell whether or not Lance has any talent, for he will need it to get this latest Williams far up the grid.

However, this post is not about Lance. After all, Lance’s father is very  much alive, so Lance himself is not an extremely wealthy individual just yet. As the post is entitled "The wealthiest Formula 1 driver in the world", do the math.

Yes, I know a certain Bernard Ecclestone tried to qualify for the 1958 Monaco and British Grand Prix with an old Connaught-Alta. At the time a mere car dealer, Bernie was very optimistic to think that had any chance to start the race, for, among other things, there was a huge entry list that year. Bernie's competitive career is somewhat obscure. Ecclestone was not the only top Formula 1 team owner to have tried a career as a driver. Ken Tyrrell, Max Mosley, Frank Williams, Eddie Jordan, among others, also drove competitively without much success. Colin Chapman, in my opinion, could have been a good driver, and Enzo Ferrari was not a bad driver in the 20’s. On the other hand, multi-champion Alain Prost tried to own a F1 team and was a failure. Le Professeur was completely out of his element as team chief. To each his own.

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The world's richest former Formula One driver is neither Michael Schumacher nor Ayrton Senna's estate.  Not Jackie Stewart, either. Do not even think about Eddie Irvine, although he has been exemplary in terms of investing his money.

He is an Italian driver who did not do very well, at least in F1. He tried to qualify 15 times between 1989 and 1990, and actually ran 9 GPs with Minardi. At the time, F1 had an immense number of Italian pilots, among them Alboreto, Patrese, Nannini, so he did not stand out even among its countrymen. His best finish was a timid 11th. place. He won races in Italian F3, but when he tried his luck on the F-2 and F3000, he did not do well. However, in sports cars he had a reasonable resume. In fact, he won the Le Mans 24 Hours of 1985 with Klaus Ludwig and John Winter, other less expressive races, and also drove for the Lancia and Toyota teams.

His name, Paolo Barilla, who according to Forbes magazine, has a fortune of $ 1.3 billion. He and his brothers inherited the largest pasta maker in Italy, the homonymous Barilla.

You might be a tad disappointed that the guy's net worth was basically the result of inheritance. Be that as it may, he is by far the richest Formula 1 driver ever.

2020 UPDATE

Some people have taken exception to this post, stating that Bernie Ecclestone and Roger Penske were probably wealthier than Barilla.  As for the first, his fortune can be at best estimated. Penske's fortune has allegedly taken a hit as of late, and probably more so during the 2020 pandemic. As for pasta, people are still eating tons of it, all over the world. I also believe that Barilla at least tried to have a career as a race driver, which cannot be said of either Bernie and Roger, who were business people doing some driving on the side.

Some people have mentioned Revson(!), Pedro Diniz (!!!), and even Johnny Dumfries. I have no idea how much Prince Bira was worth, he might have been a more likely candidate.

Since the subject of money in racing apparently arises your interest, you should know that I have written an entire chapter on money in racing in my book Motor Racing in the 70s - Pivoting from Romantic to Organized. The issue is not discussed only in terms of Formula 1: Sports Car, Le Mans, USAC, NASCAR, Lower Formulae, Can AM, Interserie, Formula 5000, IROC Formula Super Vee, Touring Cars and other categories are also discussed, providing some rare facts and figures in regards to this issue. Hundreds of sources were researched for the book.

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The book is not only about money, of course. It has 472 pages, 242 photos, and provides highlights of global racing in the decade, with long lists of venues and drivers from 85 countries, hundreds of unknown manufacturers, short bios of main personalities from the period, essays on the main racing categories of the world, with applicable rare statistics. Some of the information will blow your mind away. 

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ROBERTO MORENO'S F1 CAREER

2/11/1959, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Starts:41
Points: 15
Wins:0
Poles:0
Fastest Laps:1

Understanding Roberto Moreno’s career is a major undertaking, for he was an obviously talented driver, with enough stamina to be driving to this day, who simply did not seem to catch the right breaks at the right time, although on paper he seemed to have plenty of opportunities. A pal of Nelson Piquet’s, Moreno went to Europe in 1979, and by 1980 was a major force in Formula Ford, winning 15 races. He went to Formula 3 in 1981, got excluded from some races due to regulation violations, and that early in his career got a testing contract with Lotus. Having won the Australian GP in 1981, against many established GP aces, Moreno went to the USA to drive in Atlantic. He then got what could be seen as the opportunity of a lifetime, but turned out to almost kill his career: he was entered as a Lotus race driver in the Dutch GP, but failed to come to grips with the car and DNQ’d miserably. That was it as far as Lotus was concerned. Still, he managed to land a works Ralt-Honda F2 drive, in the last year of the Formula, in 1984, finishing runner up in the championship. He then shifted focus to the USA again, trying Indy cars, where he made several contacts that would be useful years later. He returned to Europe to drive in F3000, was unlucky not to win many races, and finally got another Formula 1 break, driving for the underfinanced AGS team in 1987. He did really well to finish 6th in Australia, but that was not enough to get him a permanent Formula 1 drive, even at AGS! He did do a full season of F3000 in 1988, finally winning the championship handsomely, and was hired by Coloni for the 1989 F-1 season. One of the worst cars in the field, Moreno occasionally managed to qualify the beast, including a surprising 15th place start in Portugal. For 1990, Moreno was retained by Euro Brun, barely a change of fortune. The Euro Burn was just as bad as the Coloni, and Moreno managed to start only three races. The big chance of his career would be caused by another man’s unluckiness. Benetton’s Alessandro Nannini had a helicopter crash, as a result of which he had severe hand injuries, and the team needed a competent driver to fill the void. Obviously with some help from buddy Nelson Piquet, Moreno was called to race for the competitive team and had his 15 minutes of glory in F-1, finishing the Japanese GP in 2nd place, after qualifying ninth. Benetton decided to keep Moreno for the next season, and Roberto scored the occasional points, but was not as competitive as management expected. So after finishing 4th in Belgium and posting fastest lap, Moreno was summarily fired from the team, and replaced by Michael Schumacher, who had impressed in his debut race at SPA. As some form of compensation, Moreno got a couple of drives at Jordan, which was a rookie team that year, plus a final race of the year at Minardi. Reportedly he took home a nice sum of cash with his dismissal, but no money in the world could compensate what came next: a season driving for Andrea Moda, a team many reckon to have been the worst ever to grace the GP shores. Moreno actually managed to qualify in Monaco, of all places, but the car was terrible, there were legal problems, no engines, and it was all rather obvious that the team would not survive the year. It didn’t. After that, Moreno did some touring car racing in Europe, until he was called to drive in the largely Brazilian funded Forti team, in 1995. Reminiscent of Copersucar efforts of the 70’s, the yellow liveried team was also very far from competitive, and to make matters worse for Moreno, at times even teammate Diniz, whom many considered merely a rich kid, was faster than him. He saw out the season mostly retiring and never qualifying better than 20th. Moreno’s F1 career was thus over, but he continued racing, becoming known as Super Sub in the hey day of the CART Series in the USA, eventually landing a permanent seat in a good team and a couple of well deserved wins. He now races in the Brazilian Stock Car series, and appears sporadically in Sports Car races in the US.
OTHER CARS DRIVEN:
Formula 3000: Reynard, Tyrrell, Ralt,
Formula 2: Ralt
Formula 3: Ralt
Formula Ford: Van Diemen, Royale
Formula Atlantic: Ralt
Formula Indy: Lola, March, Swift, GForce, Reynard
Sports-cars: Porsche (930, 962), Riley
Touring-cars: Ford, Chevrolet (Brazilian stocks), Alfa-Romeo