586 million Euros in sponsorship contracts in 2011
The crisis seems to have passed for the Formula 1 teams. Thus, the total sponsorship budget collected by the various teams this F1 2011 season reached 586 million euros, an increase of nearly 10% compared to the previous season.
But as significant as this revenue may seem, it remains well below the numbers reached in 2009 when nearly 621 million euros funded the 10 Formula One teams.
Similarly, the distribution indicated by Christian Sylt and Caroline Reid, the two references in the sector with their publication Formula Money, shows that while the average budget per team reaches 120 million euros, there are significant income disparities between the different teams.
Thus, Red Bull increased its budget by 29.5% to reach 122 million euros, with nearly half going towards the salaries of its 592 employees. During the off-season, its two world championship titles allowed it to attract numerous partners, the most notable being Infiniti. It seems that the Milton Keynes team no longer pays for its Renault engines in exchange for this large-scale display of Nissan’s luxury brand. The savings are estimated to be between seven and eight million euros per season.
Nevertheless, not everyone is happy. Williams, which has chosen to go public to allow Patrick Head to sell his stake in the team, has seen its sponsors’ financial contributions decrease by 40% in one year with the departure of six major sponsors, including Allianz and RBS. Certainly, Pastor Maldonado brings in 18 million euros through PDVSA to replace Nico Hülkenberg, but the total amount brought in by sponsors now only reaches 31 million euros.
But there are even worse situations since paying drivers are almost the only source of income for a team like HRT. Thus, Narain Karthikeyan owes his seat only to the 8 million euros provided by the Indian conglomerate Tata.
To limit the differences between the various teams, they signed the RRA, an agreement that limits the number of employees, wind tunnel hours, and computer simulation. However, controversy has inevitably touched Red Bull’s budget, which might have exceeded the set limit.
With the participation of RacingBusiness.fr
