Last week’s astonishing events on the financial markets will surely have an impact on F1 sooner or later. Governments are supporting major financial institutions and others are going to the wall.
This will inevitably impact upon a sport like Formula 1 which devours money. New research shows the teams have over $3bn in resources this year. And Toyota has more money to spend than any other team but it is one of three outfits with over $400m to spend. Here are the astonishing figures that show the true cost of competing in F1.
2008 F1 team resources
Including sponsorship, supplier deals, prize money, team owner contributions, tyre provision and supply of customer engines where appropriate.
Toyota: $445.6m
McLaren: $433.3m
Ferrari: $414.9m
Honda: $398.1m
Renault: $393.8m
BMW Sauber: $366.8m
Red Bull Racing: $164.7m
Williams: $160.6m
Toro Rosso: $128.2m
Force India: $121.85m
Super Aguri: $45.6m
Total: $3,073.45m
2007 team cost per point
2007 team resources divided by points scored.
Ferrari: $1.9m
BMW Sauber: $3.3m
Williams: $4m
Red Bull Racing: $5.9m
Renault: $7.3m
Toro Rosso: $10.6m
Super Aguri: $19.4m
Toyota: $34.2m
Spyker: $52.95m
Honda: $57.2m
McLaren: No points scored
Average length of current sponsorships by team
Ferrari: 13 seasons
McLaren: 7.07 seasons
Toyota: 5.36 seasons
BMW Sauber: 4.27 seasons
Renault: 3.97 seasons
Williams: 3.83 seasons
Honda: 3.28 seasons
Red Bull Racing: 2.73 seasons
Force India: 2.16 seasons
Super Aguri: 1.88 seasons
Toro Rosso: 1.86 seasons
Source: Christian Sylt / Formula Money
F1freak
22nd September 2008, 11:16
great info keith….
quite surprised that honda have such a big budget and still they are struggling…also whats with totyota…
maybe they dont have much experienced staff…i dont know…just a guess..
milos
22nd September 2008, 11:18
hm, so Red Bull spends less on 2 teams combined than Toyota on one. Red Bull has been in F1 since 2005, Toyota since 2002. One of Red Bull teams has won the race already, Toyota still nothing …
And then look at Honda, the more they spend the deeper they fall … There goes the Japanese efficiency …
francois
22nd September 2008, 11:35
$445.6m is about the same as £240m Keith – the typo in the title bar did make my jaw drop for a moment:) .
Milos , you’re right in wondering where the Japanese efficiency has gone , Toyota still are underachieving given the amount of money they have spent.Honda would do much better if they stopped employing a motorbike designer as chief designer of their F1 car.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
22nd September 2008, 12:25
Francois – that was a stupid mistake! Fixed now.
F1freak
22nd September 2008, 12:31
francois
“Honda would do much better if they stopped employing a motorbike designer as chief designer of their F1 car.”
funny man…
by the way renault have more money then bmw then why are the moaning abt teams secretly getting more power frm engine…
they shud spend some money…
Jan Ekkeren
28th March 2009, 15:48
Ross Brawn is the most sucessfull F-1 designer ever !
Holy cow, read some history…
mcbhargav
8th February 2016, 16:35
Nostalgia brought me here!
2009 F1 is won by HONDA ( aka Ross Brawn).
zomtec
17th March 2017, 8:13
they didn’t use a honda engine though
antonyob
22nd September 2008, 13:18
Id be interested to see a proper investigation into CVC, the majority rights holders to F1. They borrowed heavily from Lehman Brothers (rip) to get into F1 and are now slightly concerned that their income streams are not where they should be. On the horizon it looks even worse as the teams are negotiating for 75% of the cash swilling around F1 rather than the current 47%. Bernie may be small of stature but hes no mug and this could be the biggest “pig in a poke sack” in history.
But who are they? Why did they want in and what is there vulnerability now their backers are insolvent? From what ive seen they looked like a bunch of white socked ( albeit lacoste socks) sales boys.
Ron
22nd September 2008, 13:41
Toyota Shell out all this money!!!! and then choke when a bunch of engineers want to sup up a Lexus IS into an IS-F? what’s wrong with these people?
and Honda? well i thought japanese culture was all agaist inneficiency.
when you see it from this perspective, cost/point, you can tell which teams are the most competitive.
Tim
22nd September 2008, 13:42
As the old saying goes, it’s not what you’ve got it’s the way that you use it…
Honda and Toyota have lots of cash available to them but, for whatever reason, they aren’t using it as well as McLaren or Ferrari. This isn’t a surprise, and I think it was once said of Honda or Toyota (or both, at different times) that it doesn’t have a budget for motorsport, it simply applies the resources it needs to win. So, are the big Japanese teams wasting their money on blind alleys, redundant technology, layers of middle management or what?
Interesting to note that McLaren are outspending Ferrari, who were long assumed (until Toyota anyway) to have the biggest budget in F1 – feeling the pince from lower Marlboro spending perhaps?
Also struck that Renault’s budget isn’t actually that much less than the likes of McLaren and Ferrari – Flavio usually boasts about how his team get the most from significantly lower resources. But they have a budget that’s as high as 88% or Toyota’s which seems rather more than I would have assumed a frugal, efficient team would have had. Certainly, it’s higher than BMW Sauber’s…
Another interesting feature of these numbers is the difference between Red Bull and STR – not very much really. Does this indicate that the costs of designing and developing the cars come from the Red Bull Technology budget rather than either of the teams, or simply that they split costs between themselves?
And to close with another old saying – how d’you make a small fortune from motor racing? Start with a large one.
Chaz
22nd September 2008, 13:46
As ever great article.
1) Do we know how much Bernie gives the teams per point from the TV rights?
2) I’m also curious if the winning drivers and teams get a cheque after each race and if so how much?
3) I’m always interested how the sponsors translate the sponsorship money the give to the teams into presumably increased business revenue terms.
Madurai
22nd September 2008, 14:49
wat is toyoto doing with that much money?????
Racer X
22nd September 2008, 16:05
hey Maduari, Ya have some connection with Madurai, Tamil Nadu ? If so you’ll know better than anyone here how money disappear just like that…..You know..like how a contract for making road in Tamil Nadu takes 10 times more money and 2 times more time than the original planned time.
Nick Caulfield
22nd September 2008, 16:32
Is McLaren’s 433 million or so before or after the 100 million dollar FIA fine imposed on them after the events in 2007?
It’s still a shocking amount for a punitive fine (and the debate on whether it was appropriate or not has been done) but in the context of a season’s budget coupled with the observation that they are still within reach of this year’s constructor’s title (and the vague memory that they don’t have to pay it all at once) it does sort of illustrate that *if* someone actually *wanted* to punish them financially, then merely one order of magnitude less would pretty much fail to do so.
GeorgeK
22nd September 2008, 17:43
Nick, was last years fine meant to cripple McLaren to the point where they could not compete this year? If so, they should have just banned them for a year.
I believe the fine amount came from Max’s scheming pea brain as being sufficient to hurt McLaren’s competitiveness this year. Like all things dealing with Ron, Max underestimated him yet again.
What I’d like to know is what the income to Ferrari and Toyota are from their engine supply deals, and what the cost is to produce the extra engines and services? I suspect they make a lot.
Contraro
22nd September 2008, 18:00
I think these numbers are misleading in some ways. If I understand correctly, Toyota and Honda are relatively recent entrants into the full-fledged F-1 constructor business. It means they have to spend a lot of money building up the infrastructure and staff to the level of Ferrari and McLaren that have been players in the game for much much longer.
For example, if Toyota wanted a wind tunnel they would have to go and spend (let’s say) $50 million this year. Ferrari already have one (or two) that was built several years ago and they probably only spend $5 – $10 million on its operating costs this year. Which means Ferrari has about $40 million at its disposal to gain an additional tenth per lap that Toyota does not.
Sush
22nd September 2008, 18:10
if you squint at that pic the TF108 looks like a catfish.
there you go, my daily rubbish contribution.
Dan Brunell
22nd September 2008, 21:14
Couple of things I take from the numbers:
– It’s ironic; you really can’t call it “Formula One” anymore. The dramatic difference in revenue between the manufacture teams and the “Garagesters” is amazing. That said, the statement that rings true with other sports now rings with Formula One: It is not how much money you spend, it is what you do with it.
– This might be their total expenses, but I wonder what their revenue is? It’s oblivious looking at the numbers that each manufacture pours perhaps $250 million apiece and get the rest through advertising. Some of the manufacture teams seem to be better at bring in sponsors (like Ferrari, Renault, McLaren, and perhaps BMW) then say like Honda. Any place which breaks that down?
– How the @#@& can Honda be THAT bad with a nearly $400 million budget? Really, give me that much and even I could build a better car. My god! Brawn certainly has his work cut out for him.
– I am surprised that Toro Rosso and Red Bull’s budget are that similar. Is it really a $36ish million different between a customer and a chassis supplier? Wow!
Steven Roy
22nd September 2008, 21:55
Dan,
The RBR and STR chassis are designed and made by a third company. It’s called something like Red Bull Technology. It will have an entirely separate budget.
D Winn
22nd September 2008, 22:04
@Sush
You either have a very vivid imagination OR – Can I have some of that stuff you are on ? :-)
michael counsell
22nd September 2008, 23:31
They teams only spend the money because they can. They don’t need to make a profit and are constantly developing new technology and generating the money every year. They size of the budgets are not a problem but a sign that things are going well for the teams.
Jean
23rd September 2008, 7:11
Like many other things on earth these days , F1 has managed to blow up a very big balloon which I hope they can deflate slowly back to the normal size without it going BANG. and it’s unfortunately the cause of excessive politics and court room battles , as we have witnessed too many of in the last few years.
Chickv
23rd September 2008, 13:04
Psst! Better keep this list from Max eys sight. Else, he will find way to get a chunk of Toyota’s & Maclaren to subsidise Ferrari’s win.
todd
23rd September 2008, 15:38
ross brawn should really be at toyota not honda. next year will be the real test of honda’s power. better hope they do better next year if they want to stay in F1, otherwise i fear they might think about leaving…
Toby
23rd September 2008, 23:40
I’d be really interested to see how much of McLaren’s budget comes from Mercedes. We can see the other manufacturer’s spending, but Mercedes manages to stay in the shadows. Anyone know if Formula Money covers this?
Nick
22nd April 2009, 11:51
Toyota has the bigest budget in the world than others car manufactures! This is known! Also Toyota make an F1 team from zero (0), it’s means buy stuff without f1 experience on 2002 and built f1 factory in Germany with own and try to do “one aim” to win formula 1 one day… Believe that f1 in nowdays is very difficult to do that from zero… Needs time and years. Now Toyota has 8 years in f1 and i beleive it’s the time to do the “one aim”
Don’t forget something, Renault buy Benneton team 2002 and come in f1, that’s means ranault is Benneton with 10 years experience stuff and factory in f1 + 8 years nowdays= about 18 years experience, so wins 2 championships! BMW buy Sauber team too, they cannot make a team of zero their own teams because they have not much money to do that it’s dificult, Toyota can do that and i believe in this team… The begging is on 2009…!
dookster
20th June 2009, 1:14
How much did Sir Virginair paid for this years Fq championship?
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