Jim Ratcliffe has been investing some of his (considerable) fortune in elite sport for years. His first move came in 2017, when he bought Swiss football club Lausanne-Sport. Cycling followed, with the acquisition of Team Sky, later renamed Ineos Grenadiers. He subsequently took a majority stake in Nice, a minority stake in Manchester United, and made substantial investments in Formula One, sailing and rugby. The results, by and large, have been disappointing. Few of the teams to have come under his ownership or financial backing have achieved much of note. Some have fared considerably worse. Then came Kimi Antonelli. Driving for Mercedes, where Ineos has been a principal partner since 2020 and Ratcliffe’s holding company owns a third of the shares, the Italian has won the Formula One drivers’ world championship.
For Ineos, the victory comes as something of a release. As Bloomberg explains in this article, the only real successes previously enjoyed by teams owned or sponsored by the British businessman came in cycling. Ineos Grenadiers won the 2019 Tour de France and the 2021 Giro d’Italia with Egan Bernal, before Dylan van Baarle claimed Paris-Roubaix in 2022. Elsewhere, the picture has been rather less encouraging. Manchester United won the FA Cup in 2024, but that remains a relatively modest return, particularly against the backdrop of one of the deepest crises in the club’s history. Neither Lausanne nor Nice has achieved anything of significance, and reports have emerged that Ineos is looking for buyers for both clubs. In sailing, INEOS Team UK competed in the 2021 America’s Cup cycle but lost the final of the Prada Cup, one step short of a place in the main event. In 2024, INEOS Britannia went one better, winning the Louis Vuitton Cup, only to lose to Team New Zealand in the America’s Cup final.
Ratcliffe’s arrival, and the money that came with it, has hardly been a guarantee of sporting success. Even Mercedes had struggled to deliver since Ineos came on board, both as sponsor and direct investor. The team had won just one constructors’ championship, in 2021, while the drivers’ titles went elsewhere: to Max Verstappen and Red Bull from 2021 to 2024, then to Lando Norris and McLaren in 2025.
Antonelli has finally brought that run to an end. The drought had been feeding the suspicion that Ratcliffe’s sporting ventures were somehow cursed. “The Italian driver’s victory is a welcome breath of fresh air for Ratcliffe,” Kieran Maguire, professor of football finance at the University of Liverpool, told Bloomberg. He was quick to add a note of caution: “It remains to be seen, however, how much influence Ineos has at Mercedes compared with the level of control it exercises in football, sailing and other sports.” Perhaps that is where the answer lies. Nothing to do with curses or black magic.