MotoGP, how much does a team make? A huge contrast with F1

How much does a MotoGP make compared to a team competing in F1? It’s as difficult as it is complex to draw any comparisons but in this article we can at least analyse the financial agreements in place between Dorna and the independent teams racing in the world championship reigning class, and attempt to compare this with what goes on in the four-wheeled Circus.

Private teams in MotoGP

Details of the five-year agreement signed between Carmelo Ezpeleta’s firm and the Independent Teams have been revealed by our colleagues at Speedweek. According to the German publication, Dorna Sports subsidises Gresini Racing, Mooney VR46, Tech3, LCR, Pramac and RNF with figures of around 6.5-7 million Euro per season per team.

The agreement in question was signed in 2021, when there was still Esponsorama Ducati and Yamaha Petronas, squads since replaced by Valentino Rossi’s team and the satellite Aprilia team.

In this five-year contract, Dorna guarantees the teams technical stability until the end of 2026 while also bearing the costs of the Michelin tyres and standard ECUs. In exchange, teams accepted to compete in a maximum of 22 races per year, despite the cancellation of the Finland GP in 2022 and that of this year’s Kazakhstan event, with the subsidy having increased from 6.5 million in 2021 to 7 million today. The number of winter tests has been reduced, with testing not resulting in any income or live broadcasting.

In addition, if a manufacturer provides a team with a leasing agreement equating to 2.2 million Euro, Dorna reimburses the manufacturer (Ducati, Aprilia, KTM and Honda) with an incentive of one million Euro for every bike managed by a satellite structure. Ducati has managed three client teams since 2022, but only receives the subsidies for one of these, namely Pramac, with whom it has a more long-term relationship than with VR46 and Gresini. Yamaha, that is not fielding independent teams this year, will receive only 500,000 from Dorna, as was the case for KTM in 2017-18.

Teams, a comparison between MotoGP and F1

If we also include Moto2 and Moto3, categories that now receive more financing than in the past, Dorna distributes almost 70 million Euros to manufacturers and independent teams competing in the world championship, money that comes from assigning the TV rights.

Considerable sums, but numbers that cannot be compared to those in F1, where more than 950 million Euro is distributed between the ten teams on the grid as a result of very different contracts. There is one big difference though as, while in MotoGP all teams receive the same bonus, in F1 the figures depend on the results achieved by the manufacturer at both the present time and in the recent past.