Formula 1 isn’t just about speed - it’s a multi-billion dollar business. With the Grand Prix in Australia this weekend, we wanted to take a peak behind the economics of the Formula 1 teams 🏎️💨

There are ten teams in Formula 1 and each of them earn an income from three main sources:

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• Formula 1 Management payments: 
  
  • Constructors championship prize money 
    
    • This is a distribution of the ~$1 billion prize pool based on team performance
  • Column 1 payment 
    
    • A weird name and a bit of a weird payment too. It’s ~$36 million basic income paid to any team that has competed for at least 2 years
  • Heritage money 
    
    • This is also known as the ‘Ferrari budget’. ~$68 million is paid to the longest running team
  • Constructors championship bonus
    
    • This is a ~$35 million bonus for the top three performing teams in the championship each year

• Sponsorship and partnerships: On average, each team has 15-25 sponsors and a range of brand partners who pay some serious money to be associated with the F1 team. In 2025, the biggest deals secured by F1 teams are: 
  
  • Oracle, world’s 3rd largest software company, sponsoring Red Bull for $100 million
  • HP, world’s 2nd largest PC seller, sponsoring Ferrari for $100 million 
  • Aramco, world’s largest oil company, sponsoring Aston Martin for $75 million. Aramco is also a sponsor of F1.
• Merchandising and licensing: F1 teams make a large chunk of money from selling their branded apparel, accessories, and collectibles.
  
  • Since Netflix dropped their docuseries ‘Drive to Survive’, the popularity of F1 sky-rocketed (enough to add a second race in America, Miami) 
  • While Netflix isn’t paying individual teams a licensing fee, they pay F1 itself, who supposedly distributes the income amongst the teams according to popularity.  
  • As the teams become more popular through media exposure, they’re able to sell more of their own merchandise as a source of income! Win, win!

So who are the 2025 top five F1 teams based on their financial valuation? 💸

1. Ferrari - $4.78B 
2. Mercedes - $3.94B 
3. Red Bull - $3.5B 
4. McLaren - $2.2B
5. Aston Martin - $2.07B 

And guess who the top five highest paid drivers are? 🏎️ 

1. Max Verstappen (Red Bull) - $65M
2. Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) - $60M
3. Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) - $34M
4. Fernando (Aston Martin) - $20M
5. Lando Norris (McLaren) - $20M