F1 prize money: How much do GP teams and drivers really make?

Teams and drivers compete for giant prize funds across the F1 season, with the ability to earn millions extra through race-to-race bonuses. Here’s a full breakdown of what was actually paid out in 2025, now that Liberty Media’s year-end results are in.

Modern Formula 1 runs two world championships side by side: one for the drivers, who race for glory, and one for the teams, who race for money. Instead of handing prize money to whoever wins on a Sunday, F1’s pot is divided between all ten teams at the end of the season, based on where they finished in the constructors’ championship.

In 2025, McLaren retained the constructors’ title for the second year running, while Alpine finished bottom of the pile. But being top of the table and being the highest earner are two different things, as we’ll get to.

Drivers don’t miss out entirely, either. Most have bonus clauses tied to points, podiums or wins, with others linked to where they finish in the drivers’ championship.

F1’s prize pot

The prize pot’s mechanics begin with the Concorde Agreement, the contract between Formula 1, the teams and the FIA that also covers everything from technical rules to Ferrari’s infamous but rarely used technical veto. On paper it’s built to give the teams roughly half of F1’s overall profit; in practice, once revenue climbs past a certain point, the teams’ cut of each extra dollar tapers off.

With that in mind the figures can be somewhat confusing: Formula 1 brought in $3.9 billion in revenue in 2025, up 14% on the year before, and Adjusted OIBDA (essentially operating profit before depreciation and amortisation) grew to $946 million. Team payments came to $1.4 billion, an 11% rise on 2024’s $1.266 billion. That meant that the teams earnt more money than before, but less as a proportion of the overall amount. As a share of pre-payment OIBDA, the team pot actually fell from 61.5% in 2024 to 59.7% in 2025.

There was also one difference for last season that we don’t usually see: a one-off $50 million “Concorde incentive payment” in 2025, separate from the regular team pot.

How the pot actually gets split

The Concorde Agreement is a private document, and the FIA hasn’t ever published its working when it comes to the teams’ prize pot. Formula 1 has never confirmed the exact formula it uses to hand out the money, either. What has leaked out over the years, though, are key facts and figures that have enabled us to build up a relatively detailed picture of what’s going where.

Before the money is shared out for finishing positions, there are other payments, though: Roughly 5% goes straight to Ferrari, a historic payment for being F1’s oldest and most storied team, and can rise as high as 10% if the overall pot clears $1.6 billion. It hasn’t yet, but that clause means Ferrari is poised to profit more if Formula 1 continues its growth.

A further 20% is set aside as a “previous success” bonus, rewarding teams for where they’ve finished over the last ten seasons rather than just the one just gone. It’s understood to work on a simple points system: three points for a constructors’ title, two for second, one for third, each point worth an equal slice of that 20%. The idea here is to reward sustained success, not just the teams that have done well in the last 12 months.

Only now do we get to the performance-based payouts – where the remaining 75% is actually split by where teams finished in 2025. From previous leaked data, the gap between each position works out at roughly 0.9 percentage points.

Run those numbers on the actual 2025 standings, and the standings tell a slightly different story to the trophy count.

Mercedes and Red Bull have spent the better part of a decade winning constructors’ titles between them, so they’re still cashing in on that history even in the years where they’re not on the top step. For example, Mercedes’ haul from the previous-success pot alone comes to roughly £85.8m ($107.3m) – that’s more than double what McLaren gets for actually winning the championship twice running.

Add Ferrari’s 5% historic payment on top of its own success bonus, and the sport’s most iconic team ends up as the biggest overall earner in 2025, despite finishing fourth.

The totals above include finishing-position money, the previous-success bonuses where applicable and finally Ferrari’s historic payments. They’re an estimate, built on the public formulas that have have come to light over the years. There’s no way to be certain, though, short of someone leaking the actual Concorde Agreement.

Do F1 drivers receive any prize money? 

Drivers don’t get a cut of F1’s prize money directly, though according to F1 contract lawyer Dan Chapman, who previously represented Alex Albon during his move to Red Bull in 2019, it’s possible for a driver to negotiate a share of the team’s prize money. That’s unusual though; most contracts are built around salary and bonuses instead.

A driver’s salary is based mainly on experience and reputation, with performance bonuses stacked on top. According to Chapman, a driver will “almost always” get a bonus for scoring points, though the size of it varies by team; midfield and backmarker outfits tend to pay more for ninth or tenth as those positions are more realistic. On the other hand, front-running teams reward the top five more heavily.

“The team can afford to pay those points bonuses because they too will earn money for constructor points, and may also have additional income coming in from team sponsors, which will often pay them dependent on specific goals,” says Chapman. “So from a team’s point of view, if they structure their contracts correctly they will be quite happy to pay out those bonuses because it’s self-financing.”