21 replies to this topic

[Roger Clark]

Does anybody have any reliable figures regarding the income of professional drivers in years gone by?
I have read that Nuvolari earned about £25,000/year as an independant (presumably 1933/34. Moss has written that the most he earned as a driver (1961?) was £20,000.
Can anybody confirm these figures or supply any more?

[Eagle104]

Can't help you with figures, but I have interviews with most all of the GP drivers who went to Indy in '67, and almost to a man they considered the $$$ to be a big factor in their being there. In fact, Graham Hill comments on how he spent most of his 'winnings' on the purchase of a new airplane. (sadly ironic)

[Keir]

In 1972 Chris Amon was paid a base salary of $100,000, plus prize money and a company car.
Most drivers made their money from personal sponsors, but nothing like today!!!

------------------
"I Was Born Ready"

[KzKiwi]

For the 1968 and 69 seasons with Ferrari Chris Amon was paid a retainer of $US 30,000. When prize money and endorsements, etc were included the figure increased to approximately $US 70,000.

[Dave Ware]

Pre WWI, Eddie Rickenbacker was making $40,000/year.

I remember reading in '73 that Jackie Stewart made $600,000 in that year, from both driving and endorsments. That was considered a lot of money <GG>.

In 1972, BRM was paying it's drivers $156,000.

In 1973, Peter Revson was paid $7500 per race by Alfa Romero for the Endurance championship races. They only entered one race, or only used him for one race, but paid him anyway. (This was from his biography.)

I just finished re-reading Francois Cevert's biography. If I remember correctly, in 1973 he was paid 400,000 French Francs, and for '74 was to be paid twice that. I think those figures are correct. I have no idea what the exchange rate was at that time.

In '73 Steward was to have driven a Ford Escort in the Watkins Glen 6 hours and his driving fee was $10,000. (The car never made it; don't know if he got paid or not.)

My understanding about the sixties is that they got paid much less, which was why the U.S. Grand Prix, with it's healthy prize fund, was such an attraction.

Dave

[Duane]

The salaries didn't really seem to skyrocket until the 90's with Senna and Schumacher and Co.

Lauda's 3 Million in 83-84 was twice what the next highest salary amounted to. Arnoux was signed for 1 Million in 85, and took most of it with him when sacked by Ferrari after Brazil. While thses figures pale in comparison to taday's figures, at the time they were (and today for me for that matter!) considered high and in Lauda's case astronomical.

What was the Lauda quote to Ron Dennis: "pay me one dollar for my driving abilities, the rest is for my PR value."

By 93 Senna was earning (literally in some cases) a million per race.


[This message has been edited by Duane (edited 03-21-2000).]

[Ray Bell]

I'd be really happy to get the difference between what Frank Williams was offering and what Nigel Mansell finished up getting from Newman Haas.
From memory, he was asking 12m from Williams and finished up with 2m for his efforts in CART. Just what Williams offered I can't recall (if I ever knew), but I'd see a lot of newfound comfort on any of those figures on a once in a lifetime basis.

------------------
Life and love are mixed with pain...

[CVAndrw]

Supposedly before the beginning of the 1985 season Lauda, Piquet, Rosberg and Prost sat down to discuss forming a cartel that would make sure they, at least, would receive top market price. Prost would theoretically have leverage with Ron Dennis because he was such a bargain compared to Lauda; Piquet was having a rough time with Ecclestone, who, when taking into account the amount of testing Piquet was putting in, was paying a lower hourly rate than any other top team owner, etc. (Bernie was to receive the surprise of his life the next season when Frank Williams pulled $3.3 million out of a hat to snatch Nelson away.)

Unfortunately, the whole thing fell apart because, as Piquet was quoted afterwards, "Oh, you know you can never trust Alain to tell the truth in these situations!"

(Feel free to quote this back on the Prost thread!)

[KzKiwi]

More on the Ray Bell thread about Mansell and Williams. Apparently one of Mansells salary package demands was to have FOUR motel rooms for each GP weekend. Williams was having none of it and would not budge from offering more than THREE rooms.

It appears that this proved to be a rather large stumbling block in the contract negotiations between the two, although I am unsure if this contributed to the deal falling through.

Is there any truth to the rumours that 3 of the 4 rooms were for Mansells ego??

Funny though how they can agree on multi million dollar salaries and fail to agree on accommodation arrangements.

[cjs f1]

Speaking of Peter Revson's semi- autobiography, does anybody know where I could find "Speed With Style", by Peter Revson and Leon Mandel? I think it is no doubt the finest biography/autobiography ever written about a race car driver.

[Michael M]

Hello guys, I'm new here in this forum, which has been introduced to me by Austria.
My comments concerning drivers income are related to Europe, most probably on the other side of the pond things had been different.

From the beginning of motor racing until the early 30s there had been 2 major types of drivers. One category was the "factory driver", which of course cannot be compared with the actual guys. They had been normal employees, very often test or run-in drivers, meaning that they got paid their normal wage plus some expenses and/or premiums. The other category was the "gentleman driver", wealthy, and fascinated by motor racing. He had to buy his car, and covered all expenses out of own pocket. Good example are the "Bentley Boys" - mainly Woolf Barnato -, who financed W.O.'s whole car production, only to be able to race the green monsters. Or take Bugatti, the only way to race one was to buy it.
When we believe Alfred Neubauer, the first professional drivers appeared in the mid 30s, when GP racing became more and more a kind of propaganda for the make or even the country. Mercedes paid their top drivers salaries at the level of a company director, this was good money, but getting rich? No! Sometimes special agreements had been made, e.g. part of the price money to be for driver's account, road cars made available with large discounts, or even dealership contracts (Carracciola had a Mercedes showroom in the center of Berlin, and Fangio was even exclusive Mercedes importer for Argentina).
However, I estimate the number of professional drivers during this period not higher than 15 or 20, the bulk of racing drivers, especially in the lower categories, remained privateers. Besides the drivers with longterm contracts, there had also been others who could be hired by the manufacturers occasionally, but this system was not very popular, neither with the teams, nor with the drivers.

When talking about drivers income, you also have to consider the financial background of factories, race organizers, teams, and privateers. The budget of an organizer in those days came mainly from spectator ticket sales, plus some money from advertising banners around the track. Out of this pot they had to pay the starting money, and the price money. The price money mostly was fixed, but with the starting money they juggled around. Competitive teams with top drivers they attracted with large amounts, and starting grid fillers very often got only paid accommodation and catering. Most privateers never had a chance to get back any substantial payback, neither on starting, nor on price money. Only large factories had been able to sponsor their own racing department, the smaller ones had to sell either racing cars to privateers, or overpriced luxury cars to the rich, in order to finance their racing activities, but also needed the money paid by organizers heavily.

Nobody got rich in these good (?) old times, except a hand full of drivers who invested their money properly after retirement. The manufacturers? Except the majors they are all gone, and the few survivors lost their independence always at a point when racing has eaten up the last reserves. And all the privateers? The really wealthy ones could afford their hobby, but there are numerous others who spend their last penny for their passion.

This system more or less remained unchanged until the 60s when sponsorship became name of the game, and the spiral began to rotate. Sponsors required success, and success means competitive cars and the best drivers. So more and more money was invested in technical development and drivers salaries, this spiral is still turning around today, and no end is in sight.

[buddyt]

HOW TO RETIRE FROM RACING WITH A SMALL FORTUNE...........START WITH A LARGE ONE.

------------------
"Speed cost money, how fast do you want to go?"

[Dennis David]

Michael thanks for your comments. I have more information that I need to post here as soon as I have time but some drivers did make a decent living including of course Caracciola and Nuvolari who was able to purchase his own plane. While the German Cars were winning all of the GPs he was cleaning up on the smaller races with the appearance money which was paid to the team in most cases.

------------------
Regards,

Dennis David
Yahoo = dennis_a_david

Life is racing, the rest is waiting

Grand Prix History
www.ddavid.com/formula1/

[Dave Ware]

http://www.bibliofin...&SUBMIT1=SEARCH

Several used copies of "Speed with Style" are here, in both the U.S. and England.

There are also other on-line used book sites that will allow you to search by title, author, keywords...and it'll provide a list of books at various used bookstores. I've had a lot of fun with it lately seeing how much money I have in all those books I got in the '70s (most or all of them received as gifts anyway, and all possessing more sentimental value that the current pricing...)

Dave

[Roger Clark]

Michael,

I think your analysis of the pre-1930s isspot-on. however, I beleive that the professionaldriver as we know it today arrived in the early rather than the middle 30's. As Dennis says Nuvolari and Caracciola seem to have made a good living out of racing from that time. The interesting thing is that income seem to have been broadly constant from then until the late 60's and the Stewart led inflation.

[Michael M]

Dave, Roger, good evening to you.
As I said, a handful of drivers really got rich, and among them for sure Rudi and Tazio. For Carraciola I believe his income from his Mercedes dealership in Berlin was bigger than that from racing, and not to forget the sound financial background of his wife. True, Nuvolari had a plane, but I don't believe you can compare this with a Lear Jet today. In those days you could buy an airplane for the price of luxury road car. For sure they made a good living, but what I wanted to say is that by no means one can compare their income whith that of todays F1 drivers - and that under circumstances where they really risked their live in any race they entered.
The income of racing drivers remained unchanged - in net terms - until the 60s because there was no possibility to pay more. Only the appearance of commercial sponsorship changed this dramatically, but this is not valid for motor sports only, it's a phenomen which changed all categories of professional sports over the last decades.



[This message has been edited by Michael M (edited 03-28-2000).]

[cjs f1]

Thank-You Dave.

[Nathan]

I realize you are looking more for past drivers, but this is all the salary info I know about past and present drivers: (All figures in US funds)

Way back in 50's Froilan Gonzalez and all other Ferrari drivers got paid based on their performance. If Ferrari got in the top 6, the sponsors would pay Enzo $2500. Enzo gave half of this to the driver of the car and the other half paid the mechanics. Apparntly Alfa gave 90% to the drivers and a additional base salary of 150,000 lire per driver. That explains how Alfa got all the good drivers from Ferrari. What Ferrari use to due, was pay drivers with cars. Enzo could make cars cheap, and the drivers would sell them and make money. For instance, in 1951, Froilan made 6-million lire. Enzo didnt have it, so he gave him a car, which he sold for $25,000 (alot back then)

In 1992, Alain Prost signed for $5-million with Willaims. Nigel asked for $15-20, but Frank smiled and said he was prepared to pay each driver equaly. Nige left for what would become a total earnings of $4.6 million in Indy. The follwoing year, Newmann/Hass rasied his base salary to $5-million. It is reported Senna made $20-million in 1993 with McLaren. In addition Nacional paid him $6-million for advertsing on his overalls. Aryton is also the only driver Ron Dennis has ever allowed to have private sponsorship shown on his race overalls.

Shuey makes some $8-million with his new hat deal, I wont even begin to try and spell it. When Micheal Andretti signed with McLaren he was paid a base salary of $5-million. Ron offered his numerous bonuses which could raise that to almost $10-million. In 1993, MS got paid $5-million also plus bonuses.

In 91 Benetton offered Piquest a base salary of $5-million and a bonus of $100,000 for every point he scored that year. He walked away with $9.2 million.

[Ray Bell]

...and there was much talk about the points-for-cash motivation that scheme gave the the Brazilian after a lean previous year.

------------------
Life and love are mixed with pain...

[CVAndrw]

Nelson Piquet tells a funny story about the devilish thoughts running through his head during the 1986 Australian GP:

He was hoping the ideal situation would develop in which Prost was leading, Nelson second and Mansell third; Nigel could clinch the Championship if he finished second to Prost. Nelson says had that scenario unfolded, he would have immediately got on the radio and told Frank to start negotiating: "Tell Nigel it's $250,000 to let him pass." And then he says he would probably have changed his mind and closed the door at the last second!

And here we all thought everyone that day was preoccupied with whether or not their tires were going to explode...

[This message has been edited by CVAndrw (edited 03-29-2000).]

[CVAndrw]

Back to original topic and a question I’ve always wanted to pose, if it’s not too late:

Before today’s F1 exclusive and wildly lucrative sponsorship deals and driver/team contracts, starting or appearance money was everything (or at least a very big part of it), which is why so many great drivers showed up at unlikely venues in so many cobby, clapped out, one-off, one lap specials. One of my all-time favorite drivers has always been A.J. Foyt, who despite being (and remaining) doubtless one of the very biggest pains-in-the-ass who ever sat in a racing car, was always incredibly fast in everything, everywhere. The one big hole in his career was his non-participation in the F1 World Driver’s Championship (what a loss that was to racing history), and I heard one time the primary reason for this, despite the grudging respect he’d acquired for Jim Clark and Colin Chapman in the wake of Indianapolis, was pure and simply lack of what he felt was adequate remuneration. Supposedly he had a more or less standing invitation to join Clark at Team Lotus, but there was no way he was going to spend the best part of a year in Europe being paid a fraction of what he could have made back home by hustling around dirt and paved ovals and road courses in various front and rear engined USAC machinery, big banger Holman/Moody prepared sportscars, stock cars, enduro co-drives in GT40s; whoever would dangle enough cash I front of him.

Anyone have any more detail on this? Did I imagine the whole thing; did A.J. instead have an offer from Ferrari that was absolutely prohibited by all his lucrative deals with Ford; did the notoriously devious Chapman finally meet his negotiating match?

[Roger Clark]

CVAndrew:
I'd not heard of a Lotus offer to Foyt, but it's possible. We know that the reason Andretti didn,t appear full-time in F1 much earlier was the discrepancy in US and european earnings. A refusal on his part may not have been entirely down to money: the second seat at Team Lotus wasn't the most sought after in F1, at least until 1967.

Against thet, I would have to ask how serious any offer by Chapman really was. A statement like "any time you feel like doing F1, call me first" could be interpreted as an offer by one person, and polite conversation by another.