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Liberty to axe Ferraris $100 million bonus payment

Ferrari may lose some of its financial privileges under proposals being considered by F1's incoming new owners, Liberty Media.

According to reports by Forbes, the plan is to change the way the sport's prize money is paid so that it is more evenly split. It is hoped this will close the gap between 'the haves and the have nots' and in turn improve the spectacle on track.

Currently the Scuderia gets $100 million per season just for competing - paid as part of a loyalty reward as Ferrari has raced in the sport every season since it began back in 1950, while backmarkers Sauber and Manor, the latter currently on the brink of collapse, receive less than half of that amount.

"If you're Ferrari, you have enormous sponsorship revenue that goes directly to you. That's going to be impacted more positively by great races," explained Liberty's chief executive Greg Maffei.

"So thinking about balancing the team payments, so they're a little more balanced and creates more fairness, has to be weighed, in Ferrari's mind, I would expect, by the fact that creating a great platform helps our sponsorship revenue, too, so there's give-and-take," he added.

Liberty is also said to be considering reviving proposals for a controversial budget cap, with reports circulating to that effect before Christmas.

"It makes no sense to have teams spending the better part of $400m (£320m)" an unnamed source told the Telegraph in December. "That money is not doing anything good for fans. It is just wasted on competing on technology.

"That has not been driven by logic and it has created a two-class society in terms of what is spent on teams. You should have an opportunity for the underdog to win."

Zdroj: crash.net