There is much interest in the battle for 10th place in the Constructors’ Championship between Sauber and Manor. It is a significant fight in that this year there are 11 teams in the World Championship – thanks to the arrival of Haas – and, next year, only the top 10 will benefit from the full prize fund. For the last few years, with only 10 teams, both Sauber and Manor/Marussia qualified for both funds (known as “Columns”) in the prize fund structure.
To briefly explain: there are two equal prize funds: Column 1, which pays out 10 equal sums to the top 10 teams. In order to qualify for Column 1 payments, a team must have been in the top 10 for two of the last three seasons. Thus if Manor or Sauber is 11th this year it will still qualify for Column 1 money in 2017, but if it is 11th again in 2017, it will not.
The separate Column 2 fund is divided up on the basis of the previous year’s result only, with the World Champion team getting 19 percent of the fund, the second 16 percent, the third 13 percent, the fourth 11 percent, the fifth 10 percent, the sixth nine percent, the seventh seven percent, the eighth six percent, the ninth five percent and the 10th four percent.
Each of the Columns is made up of 23.75% of the EBITDA of Formula One World Championship Ltd. If you do the sums, this means that 10th position in Column 2 is worth $11 million, which explains why the fight is so important. It is a question of the survival of the fittest, because if Haas is again in the top 10 in 2017 it will then become a Column 1 team and will be paid at least $27.5 million (although the figure will change depending on the EBITDA) while if the 11th team is again 11th it will lose this money, in addition to having lost $11 million this year. Surviving without prize money and travel benefits (which are also included for the top 10 teams) is a real struggle. Thus, the teams at the back are not fighting for money itself but rather to try to avoid losing large sums of it… One of them is definitely going to lose $11 million, but worse may be to come.
joeblogsf1 
“For he that hath, to him shall be given: and he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath.” Gospel of Mark
Hi Joe, you have mentioned before that Manor are for sale/likely to be sold. Is this likely to happen soon and if so, who is the likely buyer?
Top work again, thank you.
There is no likely buyer. There are only rumours of people being interested, but the price has not yet been right
Ron Dennis has cash and time on his hands…
Hmm, could a former CEO of a famous entity be interested in taking Chinese investment that wasn’t of interest in Surrey to take a controlling interest in Manor and continue to develop that outfit?
It would be highly unusual for a man of his position not to have multi-year restraint covenants, preventing him doing just that.
Besides, he better than anyone would know how many years it would take for him to take a bottom 20% team to become a top 20%.
His announcement suggest he is going to set up a venture capital business investing in technology companies. I’d imagine that would keep him quite busy indeed.
What’s the likely hood of Liberty media overhauling both the prize money to make it fairer and helping out historic GP with fairer contracts? It seems hopefully that they believe in quantity of fans to bring in the money, rather than the big squeeze, which only works when you already have fans and rich teams.
Joe, James Morris asked what about Liberty Media changing the prize structure. What about the EU motivating Liberty Media in the approvals process to do so? I can see motivating the teams to fight to win, but the teams also need to retain value so they don’t go bust. So should expenses (say travel, shipping equipment) be paid to everyone for showing up and then prize money is the bonus on top. I am amazed that Bernie has never found an airline to be the “official airline” of F1, they lay on a big plane from the UK, stops one place in Europe and delivers the team personnel that want to fly that way to the fly away race destination. Sure could cut costs, simplify logistics and get a big sponsor involved.
Some business, like the one I work for, have policies that define how many top management and how many of one department personal can travel on the same means of transport. In our case it’s no more than around 10 people of any department on the same flight/train/coach etc. Don’t know if F1 has any view on this.
Any idea how do they qualify for Column1 if there are more than 10 teams that made it into Top10 twice in three years? Mathematically, it is possible.
Why not ring Princes Gate and ask them. They don’t hand out this information you know…
He’s simply wondering whether you would know the answer given you seem to know more than most on the subject.
/They don’t hand out this information you know/
Just thinking loud.
By the way, it’s astonishing how many pundits got it wrong about how much did Sauber gain and Manor lose this weekend. They didn’t read your pieces, apparently.
The distribution of monies in F1 has to change. Teams like Sauber deserve travel benefits based on longevity alone. While Manor have stood long enough and well enough to deserve the same. Even the lowest performing team in F1 is staffed by driven people who are giving their hearts and lives energy to F1. If the sport wants 22 cars on the grid it should pay to see them. Merit based rewards awarded for the current years results.
I would imagine every F1 fan would agree with that sentiment.
The historic payments arrangement is inconsistent given that Red Bull is included when Sauber is not. A case of finding a pseudo-justifiable explanation for appeasing the larger teams and ensuring they maintain their position at the top of the pecking order.
“If the sport wants 22 cars in the grid”
The current commercial rights holder has set up this funding system in the full knowledge that it incentivises 20 cars…..and motivates those at the back to put up a decent fight and not just trundle around and collect their hand out.
The new owners may take a different view, IF they can see how 24, 26 or more cars will improve the return on their investment.
They could try stopping the lump sum paid to Ferrari essentially just for being in the sport before all the rest of the cash is even divided out, and pay for it out of that.
Over the years many if not most of the top drivers’ CVs started with a team that was at the time a back-marker, so for that alone all of us should thank them for that.
Notable exception: L Hamilton.
Am I correct in thinking that Manor need a 9th place in Abu Dhabi to achieve 10th in the championship? If they score a 10th in Abu Dhabi they will draw level with Sauber on points, but because Sauber’s highest finishing position through the year is a 9th they still come out ahead?
/Am I correct in thinking that Manor need a 9th place in Abu Dhabi to achieve 10th in the championship?/
Yes, you are.
I vividly remember the diagram you created explaining the breakdown of cash wonderfully, I have pointed a few people towards that on occasion (when I remember where it is).
It is a wonky kind of meritocracy and seems an odd platform on which to run a business and the livelihoods of hundreds of employees. And it has given us a reduced grid, smaller teams hanging by their fingernails and a three or four team all-powerful clique of ‘haves’.
What a mess they have created, it’d a circus.
Joe, anything new on the drivers Manor will have next year? I’m hoping Pascal is still with them next year.
We’ll see…
Perhaps I’m an idiot, but this is what I would do:
Currently the two columns are funded with a total of 47.5% of the EBITDA of Formula One World Championship Ltd. Leave it that way, I suppose? Hell I don’t know. More? Less? Anyway…
Column 1 receives 40% of that amount, and splits equal shares to ALL teams.
Column 2 receives 7.5%, and splits that amount amongst the top ten, using the current percentages for championship ranking.
Done. All teams very healthy. Top ten get a little reward. Manufacturers still have lots of money, and sponsors bring what they bring. But at least the people at that back who work just as hard and perhaps harder than the people at the front wont go broke. And the ones at the front who already have everything anyway aren’t handed everything on top of that.
Anyway, the percentages are all just arbitrary to make a point. The point is that column 1 should be stuffed with a vast majority of that 47.5% of earnings. Column two should have a vastly smaller amount.
I’d like to see a separate payout column created for promoters. Each venue should get a percentage of the revenue, or a title sponsor deal arranged via the Formula One Group. Venues should be rewarded for their indispensable role in the whole show.
Better brains than mine have identified the problem and articulated it as ‘the problem is F1 has no 5 year plan let alone a 3 year plan’ or similar.
I’ve always though that limiting the payout to 10 teams was very unfair. I understand being performance based, but it is like saying the 11th team did nothing.
Ultimately I think they went that way due to championship points only being awarded to the top ten. How do you rank teams 11-XX? You are right though, it is pretty dumb, especially considering Column 1 could just as easily be split equally amongst all teams.
Column 2 gets trickier though. I actually got to thinking about that yesterday, and thought of alternate point systems so that everyone can be “ranked” for a weighted payout. My favorite at the moment is to award 1 point for finishing a full race distance and 1 for each position beyond last (including DNFs and RETs). Podium finishers get bonuses as follows: 3rd 1, 2nd 2, 1st 3. Fast lap, pole, and quickest pit stop are each worth 1/2 point.
So basically, points would be:
24-1 point, 23-2, 22-3, 21-4, 20-5, 19-6, 18-7, 17-8, 16-9, 15-10, 14-11, 13-12
12-13, 11-14, 10-15, 9-16, 8-17, 7-18, 6-19, 5-20, 4-21, 3-23, 2-26, 1-30
.5 Pole
.5 Fast Lap
.5 Quickest pit stop
Additionally, each car is allowed one drop per ten races of their worst result. In a 21 race season you would get 2 drops. A 19 race season gets 1 drop.
Just a thought.
This is the kind of murderous stupidity I hope liberty will stop. Its a disgrace that teams are scrabbling to survive while others are rolling in more money than is imaginable. At least give out enough money so they can survive.
How ironic if Nasr goes to Manor next year, having brought in the points that helped Sauber overtake them in the championship this year!
The old method of paying prize money per race was far better, if I recall correctly Lotus bagged £1m for 4th and 6th in the French GP in 1992 and Sauber the same at the same venue in 1994.
When prize money was paid on quarter distance, half distance, three quarter distance and finishing places, Minardi paid for their trip to the Brazilian GP in 1986 by running Andrea de Cesaris on enough fuel to get to a quarter distance only, Andrea quickly rose through the field from a lowly 22nd place on the grid to 6th at the end of lap 16, and then silently rolled to a halt part way round lap 17, mission accomplished. At which point the prize money payments changed, sadly for the spectator.
Interestingly Saubers 6th place finish in the French GP of 94 was also down to the late Andrea.
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