Who pays for Formula 1?

Well the road cars were originally intended to provide the money to fund racing; however Ferrari makes a huge portion of their profit from 'merchandise' these days (can't remember the exact figure, but I think it's over 25%).

 

I'm sure sponsors have several $$'s into it, too.

 

Formula one is just an advertising budget for Ferrari. Yes, some part of the car sales go to fund it but I suspect, not as much as you think.

Honestly, for the TV time and exposure they get from F-1, their spending on it is a bargin. If it weren't, they would stop and do something else.

A suspect lot of money comes from the Concorde agreement and sponsors. I heard today that because they came in 4th in the Championship versus 3rd, they lost 5 million dollars.

Five million dollars lost for Ferrari? That's like losing 50 cents to you and me.

 

I think Philip Morris (Marlboro) pays most of the Ferrari tab having the rights to re-sell its advertising space to other sponsors. I doubt Ferrari comes out of pocket for any major portion of its Formula 1 budget these days. I would not be concerned about McLaren's ability to compete, when Vodafone took its sponsorship away from Ferrari to McLaren, it joined Mercedes, Mobil 1 Shuco and a host of others. While the $100 million fine They had to pay probably even hurt Ron Dennis, his sponsorship program is still quite healthy part in thank at least partially to Lewis Hamilton and the teams continued success over the years.

 

LdM said last year or the year before that their F1 effort pays for itself and even adds to the bottom line.

As for McLaren, they've been in the hole for a few years, prior to the 100M kick in the nuts.

 

Marlboro puts MILLIONS into Ferrari. At one point I believe they had a contract for over 1 billion dollars with Ferrari and they don't even have their logo on the car. Throw in the money they get from other sponsors and from Bernie/F1, the money that Ferrari has to fork over isn't that much.

 

Almost all of it is sponsor money. They also let Toro Rosso use Ferrari engines which gives them some more $$. I think very little of what we spend on a new Ferrari actually goes to the F1 team.

 

I thought the money from Ferrari essentially went to Fiat.

 

Expensice sh**... But totally worth it.