How much does it cost to run an F1 team?
November 24th, 2006I suspect there is a question that is asked frequently by people new to the F1 world …
How much does it cost to run an F1 team?
As a general rule teams don’t publish their budgets but there are many places where one can find estimates of what the particular teams spend.
While searching around to find answers to this I found several opinions that top teams run on budgets of around $600 Million dollars per season. Others feel that this estimate is a bit on the high side.
Recent reports have claimed that Prodrive will enter Formula One in 2008 with a budget of around $80 million. If a new team, starting at the bottom of the heap needs $80 Million then I don’t find it hard to believe that the big teams could be running in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
There were other recent reports that Williams, despite underperforming in the last of a six-year collaboration with BMW, actually showed record profits of $60m in 2005. I find that interesting because it would seem to indicate that, at least with Williams the entire budget may not be spent and that a team could even run at a profit.
A recent list of spending per team estimated the amounts as follows:
- McLaren Mercedes: $400M
- Toyota: $393M
- Honda : $382M
- BMW Sauber: $378M
- Ferrari: $329M
- Renault: $300M
- Red Bull Racing: $201M
- Williams: $134
- Super Aguri: $95M
- Midland F1: $76M
- Scuderia Toro Rosso: $66M
So I guess for the question …
“How Much does it cost to run an F1 team?”
the answer would have to be … That Depends … But it’s alot of money no matter how you count it.
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