F1 cost per race - $10 M

Having looked up the accounts of MB GP and found it was £363M in 2019 I realised you can work out a real cost to put a winning car and driver onto the grid of an F1 race.

MB sent £363M which is $465M  at todays rates. I assume that includes the drivers costs.

So with two cars per race and 21 races in 2019 that is $11 million per car on the grid.

I know F1 technology is incredible, amazing, superb, energy efficient etc and both Hamilton and Bottas are star drivers but $11M per car per race is I think pretty obscene.

In fairness Liberty Global, the FIA and the team s have agreed to cut costs but you can see why that is urgent . 

Put another way since each race is about 190 miles that is $58K per mile per car

My enjoyment of seeing Lewis trounce Verstappen is 5 quid/race. How many viewers like me does it take to break even?

I would pay a lot more than 5 quid to see a 2 car, 10 lap race - Ham vs Ver in identical cars.

I would pay a lot more than 5 quid to see a 2 car, 10 lap race - Ham vs Ver in identical cars.

Gee they would only have to change the tyres once! Though can they crank the engines and motors up that far for that long?

Lee - Good question.

To keep it interesting, let's outlaw radio communications and telemetry for this 10 lapper.

Gee they would only have to change the tyres once! Though can they crank the engines and motors up that far for that long?

As long as the cars are identical it doesn't matter if they are on a qualifying setup, race setup or something in between.

I would suggest a setup that will comfortably do 20 laps without a pit stop - should allow the drivers to forget about nursing the car and concentrate on racing.

Edited by gruntguru, 11 January 2021 - 20:54.

In the unusual book "Total Competition" by Adam Parr and Ross Brawn, Brawn suggests that an in-season improvement worth 0.1 seconds per lap costs about £1 million. Presumably that cost includes developments which don't work and ignores like for like component replacement costs. IIRC he used it as an explanation for why the Brawn team's advantage slipped away during its championship winning season.