27 replies to this topic

[sa87uk]

out of complete curiousity, i wondered today how much a gp2 team would be sold for? and what is the annual budget of funding a team?

[petefenelon]

Originally posted by sa87uk
out of complete curiousity, i wondered today how much a gp2 team would be sold for? and what is the annual budget of funding a team?

Not sure this is the right forum for it but I understand budgets at most teams are of the order of a million and a bit quid per car, give or take, though I guess this year might be dearer with the new car, unless they're nicely amortised over their lifetime. Call it half that for a GP2 Asia drive, and I'm sure some teams will offer a modest discount for any driver who'll commit to both, in an attempt to avoid musical cockpits.

Quite a bargain for what you get... I doubt you could get a sensible full-season drive for £0.5m and I think anyone who came to a team with £2m would be very popular.;)

It's difficult to say how much "a GP2 team" might sell for, because many of them have other operations that share resources - e.g. running the GP2 Asia series, A1GP teams etc.

[Dolph]

It must be remembered that when you buy a GP2 team, you are not only buying assets and knowhow, but also the license to race in GP2. Currently noone can get in.

[IOU 16]

So you want to race GP2? The top feeder series to the Pinnacle of motorsports in F1. Not sure about buying a team. Buying a team would be probably more cost effective than buying the gear and equipment to start your own team though.

I do know that a season in GP2 Asia is about $500,000 as a driver. That is for a 10 race season though.

Also brought up is that teams run cars in other series. Dave Price Racing (DPR) runs cars in A1GP. ART runs cars in F3. Dams runs GT cars. Those costs would also have to be counted, unless you are just buying the team's for the GP2 competitors license.

[CWeil]

Wishful thinking. GP2 Asia is $500,000USD for DPR... maybe. I know one of the drivers very well, and he only paid $300,000- but that was because his sponsor paid about a million. For Asia.

Jackman?

Anyway, large lower formula teams (ART/formerly ASM, Arden, DAMS, Super Nova, Racing Engineering, etc etc) run in multiple championships sometime under numerous names, so by the time they are running GP2 they aren't usually so on the fence that they're about to go out of business. Sure, many need pay drivers, but that's a bit different.

[lustigson]

It's not the price of a drive in GP2, he asks, but the price of the team. And that would include the right of entry, indeed.

[Ross Stonefeld]

Why would you buy a team? It won't be worth anything at the end of 2010, you'd be better off sponsoring a team.

[zakeriath]

The value of a team depends on how the team is structured.

Do they own the cars and engines and charge for the drives. i.e. assets
Do they lease the cars and engines, which are paid by the driver / sponsor.
Do they prepare and run the cars for the drivers / sponsors

This along with the type of property they have which is needed to service the cars, transport, employees etc.

A typical GP 2 car costs around £1,300,000 to run for a season (ex Asia GP2)
BTCC £600,000
F3 £380,000

The only reason to buy a GP 2 team is for the entry at the moment.

[Ross Stonefeld]

Then just sponsor a team. GP2 entries are worth little more than the paper they are printed on. A GP2 franchise is not yet a profit center so the value is what someone is willing to pay you for it.

[JForce]

Originally posted by Ross Stonefeld
Why would you buy a team? It won't be worth anything at the end of 2010, you'd be better off sponsoring a team.

What happens then?

[Ross Stonefeld]

New car design comes out so your parts/cars aren't worth anything unless the series buys them back for GP2 Asia or you run them in GP2 Asia.

[Jackman]

The cost of doing a season in GP2 is usually massively over-inflated: I know a lot of drivers who have been in the main series for much less than the figures bandied about here. Bear in mind that there are different costs that occur throughout the year: there is the cost to get the seat with the team, which pays for the team itself to run, there are the costs of parts over the season, and there are various other incidental costs that can all add up. Teams also have the opportunity to run their own sponsorship, which can mitigate costs in their (and the driver's) favour as well.

Knowing how much someone paid to get the seat is the first part, but the ultimate cost won't be known until the end of the season, generally.

[united]

Great thread.

Please exсuse me my ignorance, but I have always thought that a certain majority of GP2 teams obtain profits not by a clever attraction of sponsors' interest, but mostly by hiring pilots who pay for the drive and bring along their own sponsors. So teams like DPR and BCN are always near the back end of the field but apparently financially stable.

Is my assessment somehow correct?

Do teams sell their old cars to lower formulae just like they did in F3000?

[tidytracks]

No they dont sell the equipment on...

The biggest kick in the nuts for the GP2 teams was GP2 Asia, which gave them no ability to sell on their cars. Essentially the teams pay off part of their cars each season they race, so that by the end of the third year the cars are theirs to sell by the time the new car comes into play.

But with GP2 Asia, 12 out of the 13 teams stayed put (out of pressure mainly) and had to keep the cars not only in their posession, but had to maintain their running costs. Only Racing Engineering sold their cars back to GP2 in order for Meritus to buy them from GP2 for the Asia Series and you can bet your bottom dollar RE got minimal payout for them, while I wouldnt be surprised if Meritus was charged something close to orginal price.

[Jackman]

Also, with the way the series is run there is not really such a thing as the cost of a car after the initial supply, but rather the cost of the parts. All parts have to be official (ie. supplied by Dallara, Meccachrome, etc) via the series, and the teams provide a list of parts needed and are then supplied immediately. I won't go into the costing of components, but again that is cheaper than generally believed.

[tidytracks]

And in some cases unbelievably over-inflated...

Don't get me started on how much the skirts cost... no wonder Durango started manufacturing their own pieces.

[noikeee]

Originally posted by tidytracks
No they dont sell the equipment on...

The biggest kick in the nuts for the GP2 teams was GP2 Asia, which gave them no ability to sell on their cars. Essentially the teams pay off part of their cars each season they race, so that by the end of the third year the cars are theirs to sell by the time the new car comes into play.

But with GP2 Asia, 12 out of the 13 teams stayed put (out of pressure mainly) and had to keep the cars not only in their posession, but had to maintain their running costs. Only Racing Engineering sold their cars back to GP2 in order for Meritus to buy them from GP2 for the Asia Series and you can bet your bottom dollar RE got minimal payout for them, while I wouldnt be surprised if Meritus was charged something close to orginal price.

Interesting, but won't they eventually sell those first cars at some point? Or do they still need to keep them for GP2 Asia next year and the following years?

[Jackman]

Originally posted by tidytracks
And in some cases unbelievably over-inflated...

Don't get me started on how much the skirts cost... no wonder Durango started manufacturing their own pieces.

Yeah that's true, but then a tub is only 26k.

[Ross Stonefeld]

I can buy an entire used F3 car for 26

[rolf123]

I'm amazed that there haven't been any rich 40 year olds buying themselves a GP2 drive.

I would if I had the money.

[Jackman]

You'd have to convince a team to run you: they want to win, and you'd need to have a CV that suggests you could.

[Ross Stonefeld]

You'd go off an do GT or historics at that stage. You would not enjoy racing in GP2 if you were there as a hobby.

[petefenelon]

Originally posted by rolf123
I'm amazed that there haven't been any rich 40 year olds buying themselves a GP2 drive.

I would if I had the money.

What's Chanoch Nissany up to these days? ;P

[Levike]

Originally posted by petefenelon


What's Chanoch Nissany up to these days? ;P

I think that GP2 is really a feeder series, with no team struggling really with the money. Nissany and the likes would be never a competitive choice, he is slow as hell and has no future in serious racing. Minardi was fighting for survival and needed every penny. I could imagine how important testing feedback was what Nissany was able to give. I think they were just getting the money and were letting the guy to do some laps, but i'm sure that Stoddart promised him to be a dead man in case of damaging the car.

[Haddock]

Originally posted by Jackman
You'd have to convince a team to run you: they want to win, and you'd need to have a CV that suggests you could.

Nah, you'd just need a lot of cash. But yes, I suspect the quicker you are, the more slack a team might cut you in terms of the price of a drive. Didn't AlvaroParente get his WSR drive for free last year because the team wanted to prove they could win races with the right driver? Almost certainly enables them to charge more this year than they would otherwise have been able to do.

But if I were a rich and inexperienced 40 year old, I'd go off and race GTs or Historics rather than trail around making a fool of myself at the back of the GP2 grid (and that's assuming that you could get the required competition licence. They won't let just anyone race those things).

[Ross Stonefeld]

They will actually, international competition licenses are experience based. If you do 12 races on a National B spec in the UK without doing something really really stupid, you qualify for an International C, etc.

[pingu666]

what sort of cars is national b level?

[Ross Stonefeld]

Formula Ford and Formula Renaults, I think. So half a season of those without crashing into someone on purpose and you'd be allowed to start Class-B F3 races, do Formula Renault Eurocup, etc.

And thats assuming you didn't just go to Dubai to get your race license, because their bottom level license moves you straight to International C!