Rory McIlroy Is Taking a Swing at Formula One

The golfer, who is part of the group of sports figures investing in the Alpine F1 Team, wants to help the drivers however he can and maybe even get in a car one day.

It’s fair to say that Rory Mcllroy is one of the most recognizable figures in sports. The golfer has won an incredible array of trophies but is now taking a swing at investments. Joining a host of elite sportspeople that includes Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce and Anthony Joshua, Mcllroy is now part of the Otro Capital group, which recently committed €200 million to the Alpine F1 Team.

Taking a trip to the U.S. Grand Prix to support Alpine, Mcllroy sat down with journalists to discuss his love of motor racing, how he can help the team and wanting to get behind the wheel of a Formula One car.

McIlroy visited the Alpine F1 Team at the U.S. Grand Prix in Austin.  :: IMAGO/LAPbg

Sports Illustrated: Rory, what prompted this investment?

Rory Mcllroy: I’ve always had an interest in F1. I’ve always been a fan. F1 has always been really big in Europe, but the boom of F1 in the United States, off the back of the Netflix show, and everything else, with its popularity, it just felt like a really good time to do something like this. Obviously it’s an investment, and every investment you’re trying to make money from, but it’s a purposeful investment. You’re trying to help a team. It’s competitive. Instead of investing in some business I don’t really know anything about it, I can actually relate to this. I feel like I might be able to help in some way. Whether it be just conversations with the drivers, I don’t know, but it’s a really cool opportunity. I’m really happy to be involved. It’s exciting times ahead.

SI: You mentioned the Netflix show, Drive to Survive. Have you watched that yourself?

RM: Yeah, from Season 1 all the way through to what’s coming up in Season 5, I think it is at this point. Netflix and Box to Box Films, the production company have done the same thing in golf as well, with Full Swing with Season 1 now going into our second season. Content is king. You can create so many great stories around F1 or golf, and very authentic stories. I don’t think it has to be contrived in any way. Sport is such a wonderful storytelling platform. I think what the Netflix show has done is you see the drivers, and they’re usually in helmets, and it humanizes the drivers a lot. You feel a closer connection to them. I honestly have a closer connection to some of the teams that maybe aren’t competing up at the top of the grid every week, which I think is really important to tell the whole story of the grid and F1.

SI: Was there a turning point that you went from being a fan to wanting to be more involved?

RM: Honestly, it was really never something that crossed my mind. But if you look at the valuations of some of these F1 teams and sports teams in general, they’re a huge ticket price. So it was really when the opportunity came along to be like, “Hey, we’re raising money. We want to buy a quarter of an F1 team, would you be interested?” and I was like, yeah, absolutely. I think Otro came to us and said, these are the people that we have involved as well and then they shared the pitch deck from Alpine in terms of their vision for the future, where they want the team to go, some of the benefits of Alpine making their own power unit, and all the other things like the Academy, which is a really big part of Alpine as well. I just think their growth mindset and looking towards the future was something that I could really get behind. Obviously, the opportunity with Otro and maximum effort with some of these guys, it just made sense.

SI: Are there any ideas, platforms or strategies that you can pull across from golf into racing?

RM: From a mindset point of view, you can always find comparisons between different sports. The first tee shot for me is nothing like being at the starting grid and knowing that you’re going to be racing at 150 miles an hour with 19 other cars around you. So it’s certainly not life or death, in terms of what I do. But I think there are certain things like a driver losing confidence and a golfer losing confidence. How do you rebound from that? How do you bounce back from a bad qualifying session or a bad round of golf and sort of trying to get into the right frame of mind to get the best out of yourself? Everyone talks about F1, and it’s all about the car and the technical side of things, but at the end of the day, there is a human driving the thing. I think the human element is something that is a big component of it. So that’s what I said, if I could help in any way even just sharing ideas with the drivers about mentality and if I’ve been in a certain situation, what have I thought and what’s helped me. I’ve always felt like conversations like that amongst athletes I’ve really gotten a lot out of and I really enjoyed it.

McIlroy says a lot of his interest in investing with Alpine was wanting to help with the drivers as a fellow athlete.  :: Darron Cummings/AP Photo

SI: Have you ever been in an F1 car for a ride, and would you like to?

RM: I'd love to, I haven’t. I love cars. I think as I’ve gotten a little older and a little more mature I’m not as much of a speed demon as I used to be. I think back to when I used to drive cars in my early 20s, and I was like, Rory, what were you doing? I didn’t know anything about driving! But I would love to jump in an F1 car. I think that would be an absolutely amazing experience.

SI: Have you ever met the Alpine F1 drivers before, Esteban Ocon or Pierre Gasly?

RM: So that was just the first time [before this interview] with Pierre and Esteban. Again, because of the Netflix show you feel like you know them. I know Pierre is getting into golf a little bit, too, which is really cool. Good to see he’s playing in that Netflix Cup in Las Vegas in a few weeks’ time. So it’s nice to sort of have that crossover.

SI: What is it about motor sport that you love?

RM: The noise, the energy. I think the two best things to watch in sport are probably the first round of a boxing fight and the starting grid going into the first corner. That’s where it’s like the edge of your seat. I’m not very nervous when a soccer match kicks off or other sports that I follow. But whenever, like at the start of a fight or the start of a race, you’re nervous; you have butterflies in your stomach. And I think just that being a fan and getting that feeling is really excellent.