Ferrari Receives The Biggest Ever Payout to a Team

Irony has always worked like that. While McLaren has been fined in US$ 100 million due to last year’s espionage scandal, Ferrari is said to have earned exactly the same amount of money for this year’s season, the biggest payout for a team ever made by F1 Group, controlled by Bernie Ecclestone.

Part of this huge amount of money (US$ 68.9 million) has gone to Ferrari because of last year’s Constructors’ Championship, while the rest of it (US$ 33.3 million) has been paid when Ferrari accepted to continue competing until 2012 (not that anyone thinks Ferrari will ever withdraw from F1).

While in previous years the top 10 F1 teams shared only 47% of TV transmission rights revenues, in 2007 they got a bigger piece of a bigger cake: 50% of all the profits generated by all F1 commercial rights, including trackside advertising, for example. This helps explain the great payout Ferrari has received.

Although the pilots’ wages may diminish the money the team can invest, the US$ 100 million amount does not include Ferrari sponsors’ earnings. In the 2002 season, they have surpassed the US$ 200 million barrier. 2008 could represent another record breaking year for the Italian team. And we do not mean fast laps, pole positions or points…