Drivers's Salaries

[fog_shadow]

what a load of croc, Mark Webber is worth at least half if not three quaters of what Michael gets. and even that would be a bargain for Jaguar.

[Mags]

Originally posted by hamsmith
just two words of disagreement. Ralf Schumacher

[Webslinger]

Motorsport News put Ralfie's worth at "fourpence" last week after Imola.

Sounds about right to me.

[Mags]

Originally posted by Webslinger
Motorsport News put Ralfie's worth at "fourpence" last week after Imola.

Sounds about right to me.

I'd demand some change.

[Rennen]

Originally posted by Kicking-back
It's all speculation, of course.

No-one knows but the drivers and teams themselves.

And drivers dads.

[garcon]

He he he

On Mark Webber's worth, if you take Michael's salary as a percentage of the Ferrari budget, and Mark's salary as a percentage of Jaguar's budget, then he's probably not that far off half what Michael gets... Maybe.

[climb]

Should be interesting to verify garc

[Roninho]

Interesting topic. Anybody got a clue what testdrivers like gene, zonta, wurz, de la rosa, etc. are making a year?

[Dixie Flatline]

Interesting to revisit this thread 15 months down the track, as F1 Racing (the magazine) has published its estimate of the value-for-money ratings. The ratings do not take into account bonuses, personal sponsorships, etc. paid to the drivers and is accurate up to and including the 2005 French Grand Prix:

Driver                Points     Estimated salary     VFM rating
1.  P. Friesacher     3          $100,000             $33,333
2.  N. Heidfeld       25         $1 million           $40,000
3.  T. Monteiro       6          $250,000             $41,667
4.  N. Karthikeyan    5          $250,000             $50,000
5.  C. Albers         4          $250,000             $62,500
6.  C. Klien          4          $350,000             $87,500
7.  D. Coulthard      17         $1.5 million         $88,235
8.  P. de la Rosa     4          $500,000             $125,000
9.  F. Alonso         69         $9 million           $130,435
10. M. Webber         22         $4 million           $181,818
11. J. Trulli         31         $10 million          $322,581
12. J. Villeneuve     6          $2 million           $333,333
13. R. Barrichello    29         $10 million          $344,828
14. F. Massa          7          $2.5 million         $357,143
15. V. Liuzzi         1          $350,000             $350,000
16. A. Wurz           6          $2.5 million         $416,667
17. G. Fisichella     20         $9 million           $450,000
18. K. Raikkonen      45         $22 million          $488,888
19. M. Schumacher     40         $35 million          $875,000
20. J. Montoya        16         $15 million          $937,000
21. R. Schumacher     22         $25 million          $1.14 million
22. J. Button         5          $8 million           $1.6 million
23. A. Davidson       0          $250,000             -
24. T. Sato           0          $2 million           -

[Ralf's Girl]

Is this 'value for money' rating based purely on how many points a driver scores? Because I'm assuming that a decent driver contributes more to a team than just points. I doubt Michael Schumacher is the 19th best value for money driver out there when he's wringing every last tenth out of a car that just isn't good enough.

[Rennen]

'Pay Drivers' who bring sponsorship ie to Minardi and Jordan would retain an amount as a living wage and for expenses.

Test drivers for larger manufacturer teams are paid quite well as a rule...some more than others as you can see. Gene, Badoer, Pizzonia and Panis are missing from the list.

[Dixie Flatline]

Originally Posted by Ralf's Girl

Is this 'value for money' rating based purely on how many points a driver scores? Because I'm assuming that a decent driver contributes more to a team than just points. I doubt Michael Schumacher is the 19th best value for money driver out there when he's wringing every last tenth out of a car that just isn't good enough.

You're right - it's a simple division of estimated salary by number of points scored to France '05.

[N I Tram]

The best driver in the world is missing from the grid in that case. Come back Patrick Friesacher, all is forgiven.

[alonso11]

Originally Posted by Rennen

'Pay Drivers' who bring sponsorship ie to Minardi and Jordan would retain an amount as a living wage and for expenses.

Yepp, they do. Alex Yoong's salary at Minardi (dont laugh was 200k USD!
Of course it's safe to assume that even that money was coming from his sponsors, still, officially he got it from the team. He was an employee of Team Minardi (or whatever the company's name behind the team) and an employee have to be paid for the job they're doing.

[Roninho]

Originally Posted by Rennen

'Pay Drivers' who bring sponsorship ie to Minardi and Jordan would retain an amount as a living wage and for expenses.

Test drivers for larger manufacturer teams are paid quite well as a rule...some more than others as you can see. Gene, Badoer, Pizzonia and Panis are missing from the list.

Hmm, let's see. Wurz on $2.5 million,de la Rosa on $500.000 and Davidson on $250.000.
I'm guessing Panis at a very high level (probaby like Wurz, 'cause if i'm not mistaken he had a contract to race with toyota but switched to testing), while Gene, badoer and Pizzonia more like de la rosa since they didn't really have that many options. Gene was let go by williams, pizzonia was lucky to even have a job after the Jag-fiasco and Badoer, well he does have a lot of testing-experience and knows a lot about ferrari and their practices but i wouldn't call him a f1-star.

As for DC, he must be a true racer if he accepts 1.5 mil. at R-B, when Mclaren would probably be willing to pay him way more as a test driver (since they are paying wurz 2.5 millio'n).

Some other numbers i have heard:
Hakkinen is rumoured to be making 2 million euro for his DTM-drive (he is the highest paid one in dtm), while Frentzen was said to be earning 600-800.000 euro for his dtm-drive. I'm assuming that Alesi is at or under the Frentzen-level (i mean a german F1-star making less than Alesi in a mainly german serie driving a german car seems unlikely).

As for christian Albers: Imo quite a risk he is taking by dropping a factory Mercedes- DTM contract for a Minardi ride and $250.000 salary. With a bit of bad luck he is out of an F1-drive after this or next year and without a salary, while he could have been racing DTM at 250-500k a year for a decade.

[N I Tram]

Albers was dropped from the factory Mercedes team to make way for Mika though - they were the ones taking the gamble, although it's paid off.

Isn't DC on a low-salary deal with a huge points-per-race bonus (automatically amkign calculating his value baserd on points-per-dollar a fallacy)?

[Roninho]

I'm not really into DTM, but the way i understand it albers was pushing quite hard to enter f1 and made himself somewhat impopular by mercedes/haug. I think haug blamed him for not being focused enough on DTM and as a result losing the title to ekstrom. Haug also mentioned something about Albers entourage being a bit not so classy.
Albers finally found the money to enter F1 and decided to go that route, and mercedes/haug also decided that they had enough of Albers. At least that is way i understood it. Who dropped who is not clear to me, but imo Albers won't be back in a factory DTM-Mercedes in the next couple of years, even if he's without a f1-drive.

[DougK]

All this shows is that the big teams (Ferarri / Williams etc) can cut costs simply by cutting wages and have no excuse for complaining that the "sport" costs too much.

So would we loose the best drivers - I doubt it. After all they all say they do it becuase they enjoy it - don't they?

[BootsOntheSide]

Driver wages are a tiny fraction of the overall cost of F1 though. I suspect the total wages of the other Ferrari staff are equal to what their 4 drivers get.

[Don K]

Originally Posted by N I Tram

Albers was dropped from the factory Mercedes team to make way for Mika though - they were the ones taking the gamble, although it's paid off.

Not really.

Mika currently is p4 in the championship.
Last time Albers was classified as low as that must have been years ago.

[Adam43]

Originally Posted by N I Tram

Isn't DC on a low-salary deal with a huge points-per-race bonus (automatically amkign calculating his value baserd on points-per-dollar a fallacy)?

According to Martin Brundle no it is the other way round. He took a big cut when he left McLaren to stay in F1, but he still gets a decent basic wage, as opposed to a points salary. Not that it would matter this year as he is surely getting more points than he expected.

Originally Posted by Don K

Mika currently is p4 in the championship.
Last time Albers was classified as low as that must have been years ago.

Probably back in 2002 in only his second year of DTM. Mika is doing alright in his first, second Mercedes driver in the standings - very similar to Albers then

[emjaya]

Originally Posted by Don K

Not really.

Mika currently is p4 in the championship.
Last time Albers was classified as low as that must have been years ago.

Bit more corporate value in Mika though