Ferrari Is Still F1's Richest Team
 

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Ferrari Is Still F1's Richest Team

Looking purely at racing statistics, it is clear that – over the past two seasons – Red Bull is F1′s most successful team. In fact, Red Bull has won 23 of the last 40 races and 13 of the last 20. It only failed to make the podium in one race in 2011 (Abu Dhabi) and secured both the drivers’ and constructors’ championships. Certainly, this would mean that the Bulls get the biggest draw on F1′s pool of prize money as well, right? Wrong.

Even though Red Bull has totally dominated the sport on track, it is Ferrari that hauls away the biggest share from F1′s clandestine “prize fund.” Jonathan Noble at Autosport has reported that – based on its independent sources – Ferrari will collect the first 2.5% of the nearly $700 million in F1 prize money this year. That’s over $17 million to a team that won only one race and finished third in the constructors’ championship. According to Noble, this unique bonus is based on Ferrari’s “unrivaled historical contribution, consistent presence and strength of the brand.”

But that’s just the beginning. Noble also reports that Ferrari will get the largest cut of so-called “Category B” entitlements which are based on “world title winning success.” That amounts to another estimated $16 million. Thus, before it will even start testing again, Ferrari has filled its coffers with over $33 million. And it doesn’t end there. By finishing third in the constructor’s championship, Ferrari gets another big payday. By landing in the top three for two of the previous three years, Ferrari collects another $71 million.

When you add it all up, Ferrari will take home over $104 million in 2011. That’s more than both Red Bull and McLaren who finished ahead of it in the season standings. Doing similar calculations, Noble reports that McLaren should collect nearly $85 million while Red Bull will earn a tad over $93 million.

Despite this discrepancy in earnings – which would throw the NBA, NFL or Major League Baseball team owner’s association into cardiac arrest – the F1 teams give up the extra loot willingly. In particular, Ferrari’s exclusive 2.5% bonus based on “historical contribution” is signed off on by all teams in the Concorde agreement. As Noble writes, “every team recognizes the value of having the Prancing Horse there.”

At Brazil last week, Red Bull boss Christian Horner told Autosport that nobody grumbles about Ferrari’s favored financial status. “It is better that Ferrari are here, than not,” Horner stated. “Ferrari and F1 are synonymous and, for us, the prestige of winning in F1 with Ferrari in it is immeasurably higher than if they were not. They are historically the most significant team and it is understandable why their commercial terms are slightly different to the others.”

You have to recognize and be respectful of the Ferrari brand and the Ferrari heritage,” Horner continued. ”And we would far rather race in a championship with them – and it is great prestige to beat a team like Ferrari.”

No doubt, beating Ferrari in F1 is a prestigious honor. But who knew it was so expensive!?

- Photo and Text by Dana Larkin

Who's second?

^^^ You can't read?


Def a classy group of owners!

OUCH!:spar:

Angels suck

Another fine piece Dana, thanks!

Occupy Ferrari.

Great article, Dana! The NFL and NBA need to read a few pages out of F1's book..

That's really interesting. Thanks for posting Dana!

Scuderia Ferrari!

Great article Dana.

Good stuff Dana, but isn't this basically the same article that's over at hellof1.com albeit a little shorter?

http://bbs.hellof1.com/2976344_256650.html

Horner brings up a great point about the preferential treatment to Ferrari. Without Ferrari, F1 would lose a ton of credibility and by beating Ferrari the last two years in a row makes Red Bull look better than beating teams like Williams, Sauber, Lotus, etc. When you ask people who aren't as familiar with racing what their favorite team is in motorsports, the average layman will say Ferrari just because it's the one brand that has really made a huge contribution and impact on motorsports in general.

While it's more "fair" for the better finishing teams to get paid more, the sport would lose something if the payouts went any other way.

Great article, Dana!

What is your point?

There is an article on every major F1 board about this topic.

It's called news.

The link you show is the Autosport article that I quote and credit in my piece.

this all make perfect sense to me.....

good read

Great stuff Dana! Always a good read.

good read! very interesting!

didnt know it was like that, thanks

I looked and although I do see you quoting but I do not see whom you're crediting those quotes. I just see where it says " Photo and Text by Dana Larkin." Whenever I make a post, I always make it a point to post my sources if I end up using quotes from elsewhere.

TS should pay me to keep this place legit ;)

This is what Gobbles was getting at, I surmise.

Yep, it was..but Dana got a bit defensive in his follow-up post and so thus, I was trying to diplomatically point things out for him.

I strongly disagree with this and the proof is in the article itself.

Let's look at my text again.

I have bolded each time that I reference my source material.

That's 5 references to my source material in a very short piece. What more should I have done?

I realize that everyone's a critic, but to suggest that I somehow plagiarized any of this material is ludicrous.

There are only so many ways to repeat a hard news story. Neither facts nor hard quotes are proprietary.

I gave Autosport and Noble all of the credit that a responsible journalist would.

Seems odd that the top three teams take home such similar amounts. Frankly, I think it would harm Ferrari more than F1 if they didn't race.

:hilarious:

really? have you ever taken a peak at the crowds? what's the color most fans are wearing :shrug: