No change to F1 prize money until 2020

The Williams team believe that the sport’s independent teams, like themselves, may well have to wait another four years for any major change in distribution of F1 revenue.

The way Formula One deals with payments to teams has come under scrutiny once again over the past week.

Autosport Magazine published details on how much the 11 teams on the grid this season will receive in regards to their payments from Formula One Management [FOM].

Despite some of the calculation being based on a team’s classification in the 2015 Formula One World Constructors championship and another calculation using their performance over the past three years, Ferrari are the biggest winners due to Formula One’s skewed prize money structure .

On top of the classification prize, there is also a Constructors’ championship bonus, which has been thrashed out individually between FOM and Ferrari, Mercedes, Red Bull and McLaren.

There is also a heritage bonus, which Ferrari, Williams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes.

To add to the complicated system there is also an extra annual payment which Mercedes and Red Bull Racing benefit from.

All of this equates to a potential 2016 payout of $192million for Ferrari.

Mercedes will receive around $171million, Red Bull $144million, Williams $87million, McLaren $82million, Force India $67million, Renault $64million, Toro Rosso $57million, Sauber $54million and Manor $47million.

The disparities are glaringly obvious, move past Ferrari earning far more than back-to-back F1 champions Mercedes and look how much Red Bull Racing receive despite finishing behind Williams.

McLaren also do well considering they finished behind Force India, Renault, Toro Rosso and Sauber last season.

This is the point the likes of Force India and Sauber have made to the EU Commission, who are pushing for an even split of the money.

An even split of the money would see Williams earn $96.5million rather than $87million for third place and also see a huge increase for the majority of the grid.

But while Williams would be one of the biggest winners of any ‘fairer’ deal for teams, they believe any new deal is at least another four years away.

‘Our philosophy in life is if you cannot do something about something, then don’t worry about it. We cannot do anything about it. Williams deputy team principal Claire Williams told motorsport.com.

She continued: ‘We have tried. Lots of teams have tried to have those conversations. But, as Bernie [Ecclestone] always points out, we signed up to the current Concorde Agreement under those terms, and we cannot do anything about it.

‘We have a lot of other things that we want to worry about at Williams, so why worry about trying to fix something we cannot.

‘We have to bide our time. The new Concorde Agreement obviously we will start negotiating new terms around that well ahead of 2020 and I hope that a revision and a redistribution is something that is tabled as part of those discussions.’