Comments on: $4,378,133 – the price of a point in 2008

By: Chaz

Chaz — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 20:41:47 +0000

wow!!!

By: Keith Collantine

Keith Collantine — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 10:55:49 +0000

John W – Presumably the teams factor that in when planning their budgets. I’ve never seen figures for how much money FOM gives each of the teams, I’d be very interested to see it if you have them.

By: John W

John W — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 10:41:17 +0000

You are forgetting the most important factor.. The FOM monies. This is the slice of the TV / media revenue that is distributed amongst the teams, for each point earnt.

I urge you to draw that chart up (income), then overlay it with the chart on this page showing expenditure.. Now that would be interesting!

By: DH

DH — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 04:55:51 +0000

In the Defence of the Japanese Marquees on the grid I can say one thing, their Formula1 management is German in Case of Toyota and British in case of Honda, and sometimes I get feeling that the British and German management have taken the Japanese auto giants for a ride.

The Japanese Bosses should take page from Carlos Ghosn’s book and the relation of Renault with their F1 team.

If I was part of Japanese management I would have pulled plug on the F1 operations

By: Alianora La Canta

Alianora La Canta — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 01:23:00 +0000

Very true, John H Santander having that slightly smug tone in their new advert is priceless…

By: John H

John H — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 13:32:26 +0000

Interesting article. But the 1pt more Hamilton got compared to Massa was certainly worth more than $4.4m!

By: John Spencer

John Spencer — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 11:48:00 +0000

Despite what we were taught at school (and what your calculator may still tell you), division by zero is ‘undefined’ rather than giving infinity. That still presents a problem as to how to assess Force India’s performance – was it worthless for their sponsors?

It’s easier to rate a team’s performance by stripping the quantitative aspect, and comparing them by rank. By contrasting a team’s rank in the constructors championship with their rank in the spending league, we can see how effectively they spend money.

Honda has the worst performance, from fourth in the spending league to ninth in the constructor’s championship.

Toyota is next, #1 in spending, but 4 places lower in the manufacturers’, at fifth.

Four teams are at the same position in the spending league and the constructors’ table – McLaren, Red Bull, Williams and Force India

Renault is fifth in the spending league, but finished 1 place higher – fourth – in the constructors

Ferrari finished two places ahead of their spending position – obviously first in the constructors but only third in spending.

BMW and Toro Rosso both finished 3 places higher in the constructors than in the spending league.

In terms of bang per buck, I would rank the teams:

1. BMW
2. Torro Rosso
3. Ferrari
4. Renault
5. McLaren
6. Red Bull
7. Williams
8. Force India
9. Toyota
10 Honda

However, there are other measures of exposure (eg in terms of TV coverage) which I can’t find a link to, and which the teams use to persuade their sponsors what good value for money they’re getting.

You could argue that Torro Rosso and Red Bull are really one big superteam, and should be considered together, but even their combined budget leaves them at the same place as Red Bull in the spending league.

By: AJ

AJ — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 03:24:18 +0000

Interesting analysis Keith. I was wondering how much of these formula 1 budgets come from the side of the sponsors ?

By: michael counsell

michael counsell — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 00:59:29 +0000

This article is pointless…

You are dividing the teams’ yearly budget by an abstract performance indicator. E.g Ferrari are not $414,900,000.00 worse off than they were last season. A large amount of that money is sponsorship which they would not if the did not race and perform, and the rest comes from car sales which are boosted by the teams presence is F1.

By: Patrickl

Patrickl — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 20:10:17 +0000

This doesn’t account for which season the teams spent the budget on. For instance Renault and McLaren spent a lot of money towards the 2008 season at the end of this season. Honda seems to have switched to 2009 after the first race and BMW halfway through the season.

So a lot of the Honda budget might actually translate into points next year.