BOY RACER

Ryan Reynolds Sets Sights on New Sports Target With Formula 1 Stake

The Hollywood star is joining a group of investors to buy a stake in the Alpine F1 team.

Not content with buying a Welsh soccer team, Ryan Reynolds has bought a stake in a Formula 1 team. According to The New York Times, Reynolds’ investment firm Maximum Effort Investments has partnered with the private equity firm Redbird Capital Partners and Otro Capital to take a 24 percent stake in the Alpine F1 team that values the team at $900 million. Other investors include Reynolds’ partner Rob McElhenney and the actor Michael B. Jordan. The Alpine team is owned by the French car giant Renault but is based in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, about three hours drive from the Welsh town of Wrexham, where Reynolds and McElhenney have become local heroes after buying out the town's soccer team and helping steer it to promotion, their efforts captured for the FX documentary series Welcome to Wrexham. As the Times noted, F1 has jumped in popularity since control of the sport was sold to Liberty Media in 2017, helped along by the Netflix show Drive to Survive. Alpine is currently in fifth place in the constructor standings.