Motorsport on Monday: 18/08/14
Points per pound - F1 driver salaries revealed and analysed
However, the gulf between what the (supposed) top drivers net and the tail end of the grid is even larger than the shortfall the poor bloke who just flogged that 250 GTO at Pebble Beach experienced.
Well you'd be angry earning 8m euros less
Euro trash
There's a yawning 21.85 million euro (£17.5 million) chasm between the highest and lowest paid pedallers in Formula 1, with the top echelon stuffing their mattresses with more than you might think, and the bottom tier of the driver salary table much less than you might have guessed.
Ferrari has splashed the cash this season to bring Kimi back to Maranello. It's shelling out 44 million euros (£35.3 million) between its two drivers, making it the team with the highest wage bill. Ferrari put both Alonso and Raikkonen on a 22 million euro a year contract so it wouldn't lose any toys over the side of the Prancing Horse pram - maybe it would have been better off spending some of that cash on the car and employing cheaper drivers?
Which is exactly what Red Bull did. You can understand Vettel's pockets being lined to the same tune as the Ferrari duo's, as coming into this year he'd won four consecutive drivers' world titles. But he continues to be outshone by his Aussie teammate Daniel Ricciardo in 2014. The situation becomes even more embarrassing for Vettel when you see how much Ricciardo takes home.
Kobayashi's annual 150K euros looks meagre
Points per pound
Everyone's interested in value for money. Whether you're looking at buying a hot hatch or a hypercar, you don't want to get shafted on price; it's just that your definition of being shafted and the number of zeros on the price is adjusted to the colour of your credit card.
PHers know the performance per pound equation generally occupies most of our man maths research. The stakes are higher, but it's the same in F1.
Vettel has cost Red Bull quarter of a million euros per point this season - or £200,000 - in terms of his salary. By comparison, the outlay on Ricciardo per point is just two per cent of Vettel's total at 5,725 euros (roughly £4,600). That actually seems reasonable when you compare footballers salaries and goals. Or many golfers total pay packets vs tournament wins.
Ricciardo: paid less than Vettel, scores more points
In a closed world and a very claustrophobic atmosphere where egos clash and everyone knows everyone else's business, could the pay gap be a faint factor in Lewis and Nico's sniping? You'd like to think not - that they're both so tetchy because the title means so much to them. But there could be a bit of tension between 'humble' diamond earing Hamilton and 'grounded' "I've lived in the same flat in Monaco all my life" Rosberg over dosh.
Paid a pittance
The poor drivers flogging their guts out at the tail end of the field actually get paid a fairly meagre salary, given they're putting themselves at risk every time they roll out of pit lane - even if it is something they love.
Example: the lowest paid drivers, Caterham's Kamui Kobayashi and Marcus Ericsson, get 'just' 150,000 euros a year (£120,000). Wayne Rooney gets over twice that for one week's 'work' at Manchester United.
Ferrari has the highest wage bill in F1
It makes Valtteri Bottas' 1 million euro (£800,000) a year deal look like a good investment for Williams, while Massa on 4 million euros (£3.2 million) might be feeling the presence of younger, cheaper guns breathing down his neck.
So, who's over-paid talentless guff on the 2014 grid, and which teams have pulled a blinder on the performance-to-readies ratio? Full list below for you to decide.
2014 F1 driver salaries - euros
1. Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull) - 22 million
2. Fernando Alonso (Ferrari) - 22 million
3. Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari) - 22 million
4. Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) - 20 million
5. Jenson Button (McLaren) - 16 million
6. Nico Rosberg (Mercedes) - 12 million
7. Felipe Massa (Williams) - 4 million
8. Nico Hulkenberg (Force India) - 4 million
9. Romain Grosjean (Lotus) - 3 million
10. Pastor Maldonado (Lotus) - 3 million
11. Sergio Perez (Force India) - 3 million
12. Adrian Sutil (Sauber) - 2 million
13. Kevin Magnussen (McLaren) - 1 million
14. Valtteri Bottas (Williams) - 1 million
15. Daniel Ricciardo (Red Bull) - 750,000
16. Jean-Eric Vergne (Toro Rosso) - 750,000
17. Jules Bianchi (Marussia) - 500,000
18. Esteban Gutierrez (Sauber) - 400,000
19. Daniil Kvyat (Toro Rosso) - 250,000
20. Max Chilton (Marussia) - 200,000
21. Kamui Kobayashi (Caterham) - 150,000
22. Marcus Ericsson Caterham - 150,000
[Images: LAT]
This segment made me want to kill myself
"the lowest paid drivers, Caterham's Kamui Kobayashi and Marcus Ericsson, get 'just' 150,000 euros a year (£120,000). Wayne Rooney gets over twice that for one week's 'work' at Manchester United."
He earns more running around for a couple of hours occasionally kicking a ball and falling over than I do working 5 days a week for 5 years in a serious job where thousands of people could be very ill or die if I cock up.
1. Where do these figures come from, are they anywhere near accurate or just the result of a lot of researching and estimating.
2. Are people recognising that probably a third or more of these drivers aren't being "paid" a salary but are effectively taking a cut of the money they brought to the team in the first place.
1. Where do these figures come from, are they anywhere near accurate or just the result of a lot of researching and estimating.
2. Are people recognising that probably a third or more of these drivers aren't being "paid" a salary but are effectively taking a cut of the money they brought to the team in the first place.
Personal sponsorship on LH will outstrip anything that the rest of the grid earns, etc, etc.
The poor drivers flogging their guts out at the tail end of the field actually get paid a fairly meagre salary, given they're putting themselves at risk every time they roll out of pit lane - even if it is something they love."
Really? Should we feel sorry for them? Racing an F1 car is safer than most things you do on a day to day basis. How many people would be happy to get paid £150-200k to do what they do? Not to mention all the other streams of cash they have coming in.
Such a silly statement really.
Rosberg underpaid
The other RB driver underpaid, the RB driver overpaid.
Also, as mentioned in the main piece it does show how much Wayne Rooney is overpaid for Man UTD in comparison.
Jenson Button on that amount? No wonder Ron Dennis was the Autocar man of the year due to his business acumen and not because he allowed Autocar to be the only people to fully road test the P1
The poor drivers flogging their guts out at the tail end of the field actually get paid a fairly meagre salary, given they're putting themselves at risk every time they roll out of pit lane - even if it is something they love."
Really? Should we feel sorry for them? Racing an F1 car is safer than most things you do on a day to day basis. How many people would be happy to get paid £150-200k to do what they do? Not to mention all the other streams of cash they have coming in.
Such a silly statement really.
How about the people racing historic F1 cars? Far, far more dangerous. They generally don't receive a penny for it, even when they are the best.
I think most people would happily take £150K for a drive in a very low risk modern F1 car. In fact most would do it for free, and that includes people who are actually capable of making those cars perform.
I saw the very same list on WTF1 the other day and said the same - uncited and takes no account of the requirements placed on drivers to provide funding.
Maybe Kobayashi is getting paid £150k - but only after personally providing over a million euros from his sponsors and fundraising, so his salary is an irrelevance.
Can we get a proper consideration of the drivers' actual profit / loss from a season?
The poor drivers flogging their guts out at the tail end of the field actually get paid a fairly meagre salary, given they're putting themselves at risk every time they roll out of pit lane - even if it is something they love."
Really? Should we feel sorry for them? Racing an F1 car is safer than most things you do on a day to day basis. How many people would be happy to get paid £150-200k to do what they do? Not to mention all the other streams of cash they have coming in.
Such a silly statement really.
How about the people racing historic F1 cars? Far, far more dangerous. They generally don't receive a penny for it, even when they are the best.
I think most people would happily take £150K for a drive in a very low risk modern F1 car. In fact most would do it for free, and that includes people who are actually capable of making those cars perform.
There are so many other variables, both race drivers at Caterham, Marussia, Sauber, Williams, Force India and Lotus bring in more money than they take out (if you count the Total deal Lotus wouldn't have without Grosjean).
If you drive for McLaren then they own your ass, but Hamilton has far more commercial freedom to strike his own deals and therefore earns more as a result so even for the paid drivers it's not as clear cut as this.
There are so many other variables, both race drivers at Caterham, Marussia, Sauber, Williams, Force India and Lotus bring in more money than they take out (if you count the Total deal Lotus wouldn't have without Grosjean).
If you drive for McLaren then they own your ass, but Hamilton has far more commercial freedom to strike his own deals and therefore earns more as a result so even for the paid drivers it's not as clear cut as this.
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