Q: I’m interested to know how contracts, bonuses and incentives, especially for drivers, are typically structured in major racing series like F1, IndyCar, and top-level sports cars.
Jack
MP: I asked a friend with many years of top- and middle-tier driver management experience to help with an answer, which was provided with their name withheld at their request:
Great question!
For IndyCar, there’s a few different ways to categorize drivers on the grid.
1: Pay driver bringing some or all of the budget and not taking a dime back other than maybe 40% of prize money they earn for finishing in the top 10, minus Leaders Circle money.
2: Pay driver bringing a larger budget with negotiated salary from $150k-500k a year. Usually, larger budget equals larger salary plus the same prize money breakdown around 40% of top 10 results, not including Leaders Circle.
Pay drivers potentially could have some other incentives based on results or performance overall, which more often lead to a contract extension.
3: Paid drivers also have a large operating window. To be clear, a paid driver is strictly receiving a pay check. Salaries range from $150k — rumored $5M per year with perks for a race win bonus around 100k or $500k-$1M for the Indy 500 and similar for the championship. Additional perks are things like contract extension or salary raises based on season performance and points finishing position. Often these bonuses are covered by sponsorship contracts where the sponsor is responsible for a bonus to the team based on similar criteria.
Just as incentives can lead to addition money or longer contracts for drivers, they usually also have things that protect the team and its sponsors where if the driver does not get the results they had hoped for, or there’s a large change in financial security from a sponsor leaving, it can lead to the driver being released prior to originally agreed-upon term.
IMSA has similar situations but at a much smaller level. As for F1, I’ve not really looked too much into it. Most things you find on the internet are a mystery. Unless a team or credible news outlet posts that info in a story, I don’t trust any of the information.
Q: F1 front suspension arms used to be very long. Not as long as current Formula Ford cars, but longer like on the 1990s F1 cars.
Why are their front suspensions so much shorter these days? I would think that being longer would allow for more mechanical grip, allowing slightly smaller wings, or tons more grip with the current larger wings. Is it a rules issue, or a design issue?
Let me know where my armchair mechanics is wrong!
Sean Raymond
MP: Long suspension arms don’t automatically equate to more mechanical grip, nor do shorter arms mean less grip can be achieved. F1’s formula changed heavily for 2022 with a giant emphasis placed on aerodynamics to generate grip, so that’s one reason why aero dominates the designs instead of mechanical. Most of the tuning during a session is through aero and tire pressure. Also consider how the cars have become noticeably bigger, and teams design their cars to be as wide as the rules allow; up front, that means wide tires and wide-ish tubs consume a fair amount of space, so that dictates how much space is left to fit suspension arms and pushrods or pullrods.
Q: I race model airplanes. A lot of the very top competitors will buy several more motors and airframes than they need so they can pick and choose the very best ones to compete with. Even though they’re spec and come from one manufacturer, they’re also handbuilt and there can be a slight variance in performance. That has me wondering: do some teams stock up on extra floors/wings/bodywork beyond their needs to have their choice of the best in the lot? Or is the variance in quality too small and/or cost of the parts too great?
In a similar vein, how much finessing takes place or is allowed with the aero surfaces? Can teams sand/clearcoat/polish wings, floors, and bodywork? Can they smooth or fair edges? Or do they just clean and wrap them and send them out?
Jake, Singapore
MP: Most definitely on teams in spec series testing different spec items where possible performance gains could be found, provided they can afford to buy/have/test those extra items. Floors, in particular, are big items to benchmark for superspeedway use.
At the first professional racing team I worked for, we raced in the precursor to the USF2000 series and the Sports 2000 series where both used the 2.0-liter four-cylinder Ford Pinto engine. The rules required the use of the stock intake manifold, and our engine builder, the great Curtis Farley, did exactly what you’ve described by buying and dynoing a bunch of intakes. One stood out as better than the rest — it was stamped with “007” as Farley’s serial number, and whenever we had a big race, 007 was sent out from Kansas City and returned Monday morning so Curtis could dispatch it to the next client who needed a few extra horsepower.
IndyCar lets teams do all of the necessary bodywork smoothing and prep, but not to the point of altering the dimensions to gain an edge.