Quote:
Originally Posted by V8 Fireworks
But they were propped up by cigarette money. The ones that lost their cigarette money, like Team Lotus and Team Jordan, went out of business anyway.
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I think we need a reality check here. The money that tobacco sponsorship brought to F1 in, say, the 90s, wouldn't even cover the engines alone now (when adjusted for inflation).
I don't think people appreciate how out of hand F1 budgets are now. McLaren operated on around $30m a year when funded by Marlboro and Shell in the 90s. Their current budget is $305m. An increase of over 1000%. Adjusting for inflation, the McLaren budget of today should be approx $70m.
Each PU costs approx $10m (Mercedes apparently $14 per unit). They get, what 5? So you're at $50m a year for engines? The maths problem here is obvious.
You can reintroduce tobacco money if you want. It's pennies now compared to current budgets. It's been estimated that Mercedes have had to spend $1.4Bn to get the engines as good as they are (hence why Toto wants to charge teams more money for them). $1.4bn for 1 teams engines. That would've covered the entire grid before (again, adjusting for inflation).