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Originally Posted by Syd Thrift
F1 used to “race” at Indy, or at least they counted it on the Grand Prix circuit throughout the 50s. I don’t think anyone actually competing in F1 won points on the circuit with only a couple guys (I believe including Fangio, the guy whose record for most championships won was broken by Schumacher) flying over to compete at all. They technically didn’t even run to F1 standards but they included the race results for prestige reasons. In case you were ever wondering why Bill Vukovich has F1 wins…
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Fangio attempted the 1958 Indy 500 but did not qualify. This was his penultimate entry into an F1 event; he would later enter himself with a Maserati into the 1958 French GP, finishing fourth, and then retired on the spot after having won the F1 crown in 1951 and every year from 1954 through 1957 with a total of four different constructors.
Alberto Ascari, the 1952 and 1953 F1 world champion, entered the 1952 Indy 500 and qualified 19th, but retired from the race early.
Quote:
Originally Posted by low
My memory may be a bit faulty, but I recall in the very early 2000's that Michael Schumacher estimated to be making around $80 million per year. The only pro athlete he trailed at the time was Tiger Woods, who we all know made an absolute killing just from his endorsements.
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Those Schumacher numbers would also include endorsements though. The entire budget of a frontrunning F1 team around that time (like Ferrari) would have been around $200M, at a time when there were no limitations on testing and much less limitations around what you can actually build into that car.
The current budget caps in place are $130M-ish, but excluded from that are the salaries for the three highest-paid team members, which will regularly be the two drivers and the team prinicipal or the aerodynamic genius on staff; the latter probably at Aston Martin, now that they snatched Adrian Newey to totally build a car for Sir Lancelot to win the championship with, and who is their current team principal anyway...?