LMP and GT salaries

[SpikerJack]

I'm very curious about the differences of salaries between LMP1 factories and private team and the averege salaries in LMP2 and GT. Do the drivers have a race by race contract or they have an annual/pluriannual contracts? Because most of them compete in more than one championship..
Thank you..

[MJones94]

Originally Posted by SpikerJack

I'm very curious about the differences of salaries between LMP1 factories and private team and the averege salaries in LMP2 and GT. Do the drivers have a race by race contract or they have an annual/pluriannual contracts? Because most of them compete in more than one championship..
Thank you..

Hi, welcome to 10-Tenths!

I imagine a lot of the drivers in LMP2 bring money to the teams rather than get paid by them. I imagine they can however make a decent living from personal sponsorship and endorsements and perhaps get travel expenses paid by the team.

[SpikerJack]

Thank you! This is a great forum! Ok that's the situation for Lmp2 but i guess that in LMP1 and GT PRO the situation is different.

[GTfour]

Hi there SpikerJack( you must be dutch), welcome to the worlds best Sportscar forum.

I personally haven't put any time in finding out the current going salaries for sportscar drivers, but I do know that, during his best years at Jaguar, Jan Lammers earned in the region of $250,000 a month ! That's the late eighties not forgetting...

[SpikerJack]

No italian ! The username refers to the role of spiker in volleyball which I played years ago.. Well with pilots that regularly score points in F1 like hulkemberg and di resta peid respectively 500.000 and 200.000 a year I think the situation now has pretty changed!! So I guess that none of the wec drivers will go over 100.000, even the audi ones. Maybe Fisichella and Bruni have still contracts made with Ferrari F1 some years ago and still valid..

[rich07]

Originally Posted by GTfour

Hi there SpikerJack( you must be dutch), welcome to the worlds best Sportscar forum.

I personally haven't put any time in finding out the current going salaries for sportscar drivers, but I do know that, during his best years at Jaguar, Jan Lammers earned in the region of $250,000 a month ! That's the late eighties not forgetting...

Thats a lot more then I thought he was earning but then again it was the late eighties

In LMP1 you mostly have professional drivers who with the exception of Primat and Kartikayan probably dont bring sponsorship to the drive. The factory drivers of Audi and Toyota would be on some good salaries-mid six figures maybe? Especially for guys like McNish and Kristensen.

LMP2 would have a mixture of pro drivers and gentlemen drivers-the latter bring money to the team for the car to race and also to pay the pro driver.

GT is much the same. You have a number of factory drivers from Porsche, Ferrari, Corvette, BMW and Aston who are paid pro drivers who might bring some small sponsorship to the team but its not contingent on them getting a seat. These factory drivers would be on contracts based on time such as one year or two not a race by race contract. For example Gimmi Bruni is a Ferrari factory driver who races where the factory sends him, mostly with AF Corse in a variety of championships. Im sure AF Corse dont pay for him as the factory does as there contribution to the team as its pretty much the Ferrari works team. Same goes for Lieb and Lietz at Felbermayer, Long and Bergmeister at Lizards etc. And then you have the gentlemen drivers who do pretty much same as in LMP2.

No idea on figures, that stuff isnt public knowledge AFAIK. And the way the world economy is at the moment a lot of good drivers are sitting around without a drive as they either cant find a paying ride or dont have the sponsors to bring to the party to secure a ride.

BTW welcome to ten tenths SpikerJack, enjoy your stay

[isynge]

Originally Posted by GTfour

Hi there SpikerJack( you must be dutch), welcome to the worlds best Sportscar forum.

I personally haven't put any time in finding out the current going salaries for sportscar drivers, but I do know that, during his best years at Jaguar, Jan Lammers earned in the region of $250,000 a month ! That's the late eighties not forgetting...

A couple of conversations I had at Silverstone last month indicated that the typical figures for a Minassian style driver would be a bit less than that Lammers figure.

Obviously there's an assumption that factory drives will do that bit better, but I suspect a lot of the drivers floating around are net contributors rather than drawing any form of salary. One long established team owner has in the past stated that he has never paid a driver to drive for him.

[rich07]

Originally Posted by isynge

A couple of conversations I had at Silverstone last month indicated that the typical figures for a Minassian style driver would be a bit less than that Lammers figure.

How much less?

I would hazard a guess and say that the LMP1 guys who are probably making the most money in sportscars these days as they are employed by the teams who have the biggest wallets would not be on seven figures a season. I just cant see that type of money in sportscars. This isnt F1 or Nascar, sportscars are much more of a niche then those two.

Mind you I bet some of the GT drivers who fly around the globe pretty much every weekend racing in numerous championships with different teams for example guys like Jeroen Bleekemolen and Alan Simonsen would make some nice money out of that.

[isynge]

Originally Posted by rich07

How much less?

I would hazard a guess and say that the LMP1 guys who are probably making the most money in sportscars these days as they are employed by the teams who have the biggest wallets would not be on seven figures a season. I just cant see that type of money in sportscars. This isnt F1 or Nascar, sportscars are much more of a niche then those two.

Mind you I bet some of the GT drivers who fly around the globe pretty much every weekend racing in numerous championships with different teams for example guys like Jeroen Bleekemolen and Alan Simonsen would make some nice money out of that.

The figures talked about were per race event, and were early 5 figures, specifics weren't really gone into. I guess that offers the possibility of a very healthy annual salary if you aggressively promote yourself and have the right work ethic, not NASCAR or F1 territory, but still more than the UK Prime Minister.

Works wise it's presumably a different story. Allan McNish lives in Monaco, and you don't do that on a small salary, how much of that stems from his F1 days and how much is his Audi pay packet obviously I don't know, but like you I'd be surprised to see 7 figure salaries anywhere in sportscars.

[MJones94]

Just to let people know who didn't, the UK PM earns between £120-150k, which is less than you would think!

I imagine McNish and Kristensen have salaries going into the millions and probably a bit more like that as a retainer for their long term commitment. Yet, I doubt that any other drivers would be paid as much. Wurz would probably be paid the next highest I imagine, but I could only guess the figure.

[Mal]

McNish at least has personal sponsors outside of Audi, such as Jewson, does TV work, and is an f1 steward. I would be very surprised if Audi alone pays a 7 figure sum but maybe him and the other top guys earn that overall

[SpikerJack]

Maybe Bruni and Fisico has some sort of a contract with the "official ferrari".. I think they earn a lot more than the other gt drivers..

[Acid09]

I'm pretty sure some guys earn 7-figure salaries, especially if it's works drivers that the factory wants to keep.

If you look at Andre Lotterer for example, he was rumored to be linked with Toyota and I'm sure Audi made it worth his while to stay on board. Same goes for Timo Bernhard for example who said he might stay with Audi even though Porsche's coming back to P1...there will be plenty of money involved in such decisions.

It might be true that there's a lot of drivers available but if we talk P1, the choice of capable drivers isn't all that big, guys like Lotterer, Wurz, Sarrazin & Treluyer don't come by the dozen.

Of all the really capable P1 drivers, I can only think of Montagny who's currently out of a decent drive or a prospect for 2013. So there is a lot of demand in the market for drivers, especially as more factories will enter the scene in the coming years.

[The Badger]

Originally Posted by GTfour

Hi there SpikerJack( you must be dutch), welcome to the worlds best Sportscar forum.

I personally haven't put any time in finding out the current going salaries for sportscar drivers, but I do know that, during his best years at Jaguar, Jan Lammers earned in the region of $250,000 a month ! That's the late eighties not forgetting...

I dont think thats right at all . I remember Dinger saying 5 to 6 thousand a race in the states in Group C days , plus flights and expenses .
Cant imagine 1/4 mil a month at Jag at all !!!

I would think very few earn over a mil , unless from personal sponsorship deals .

[rich07]

Originally Posted by SpikerJack

Maybe Bruni and Fisico has some sort of a contract with the "official ferrari".. I think they earn a lot more than the other gt drivers..

Yeah they are factory pilots and both former F1 drivers so they do have exposure and good marketability with sponsors so they would probably make good money from that apart from their actual salary.