F1 also-rans to take a big knock with scaledown

The Grand Prix money-go-round is all set to grind to a disastrously costly halt for Formula One’s underachieving slow-coaches.

Cash king Bernie Ecclestone, the sport’s treasurer so far as prize money goes, has opted for a shock scaling down of payments. In future, only the top 10 outfits will benefit from a share of the $698.5m (Dh2.5 billion) prize fund — and the unfortunate eleventh placed team in the championship chase will receive nothing. That plunges hard-up also rans like Marussia and Caterham, maybe even Sauber, Williams and Force India,into the financial doldrums while the mega-wealthy front runners simply pile on the loot.

Under a new Concorde Agreement, the team with the fewest points in the Constructors’ championship will suffer and not reap a cent in stark contrast to the $10m they have gathered in previous years. I wonder if this is not an astute device, dreamt up by Ecclestone, to spice up the battle at the back of the grid. And to stir their sponsorship seekers into more robust action.

Whatever, a $10m drop is a considerable clout and it will be hard felt by whatever team finishes up rock bottom this season. “We are going to pay the top ten — and that’s that,” says Ecclestone.

Pat Symonds, technical director of Marussia, the team most likely to suffer — they trailed 11th last year admits: “The fact is everyone outside the top four teams has some financial concerns. Even Mercedes...so everybody is worried. But the difference between the haves and the have-nots is just immense. And it is not getting any better.

“Under the previous Concorde Agreement, the new teams like Marussia did get some payment from F1. It wasn’t a lot of money, but it was a significant part of our budget because our budget was so small. And when you take away benefits like that it really does hurt.

“The people here at Marussia are all racers and they are not going to let this team go. So we will survive and the great things is that we are small, so if the going gets tough we can pull our horns in a bit. If we get some more money, we will use it wisely because we are not used to having very much.

“I hope we are going places and we’ll be pushing hard to get higher up than 10th. I love to set targets that are considered to be beyond what we can expect. The quality of our car is good. I know people in the rival garages look at it and say how nicely designed and engineered it is.”

It will need to be...