they didn't earn too much did they?
today's racing = more money , more safe
shareFirst place prize money for the 1966 Monaco Grand Priz was about $2,500.00 USD.
shareThis needs to be put into context. Money was worth more at the time. That's about how much James Bond was earning for an entire year.
Back then, you could attend Ohio State for $685/year. A daily newspaper cost 7c. A clerk might earn 85c an hour, and what's more, he could be buying a 3-bedroom home with a big back yard in a nice neighborhood.
And if you realize that $2,500 had about $40,000 of spending power in today's terms, that's not too bad, considering first prize in an F1 race is only about $110,000 today. A driver with a credible chance of finishing most races and winning a few can demand at least $4 million in salary, and make still more from personal sponsorships.
Nice pay if you can get it....
James Bond? The character? A movie? A book? You know he was a fictional character, right?
shareWhen the actual racing driver Francois Cevert won the US Grand Prix at Watkins Glen in October 1971 he earned $50.000 prize money. Unfortunately that was also where he died on October 6th 1973. It just seems terrible for what they earnt that the racing was so much more dangerous for the amount that they got paid compared to today and how much more safer F1 is and the wages they get today.
And if you realize that $2,500 had about $40,000 of spending power in today's terms, that's not too bad, considering first prize in an F1 race is only about $110,000 today.
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But you do realize that the big money today (aside from the nonexistent sponsorship back then) comes from the constructors championship which pays out in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The constructors prize money was nowhere near that amount even accounting for the conversion rate. And again look at the lack of sponsors back then on the cars and drivers overalls compared to today. At one point Schumacher was probably second or third in the world behind Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan.
GP racing was rinky dink financially back then compared to what it is now.
The terrorists won a battle with America on 4/21/10 thanks to the cowards at Comedy Central
An average Joe could buy a ticket to these races for probably $5.
By making GP in 1965/66, Frankenheimer got quite lucky. It was just before F1 opened the floodgates for big, corporate money. 1968 saw the introduction of sponsor-decals on the cars ("Lotus Gold Leaf"). After that, F1 never was the same WRT money. It's like they say in the making-of on the DVD: This was the last point in history where Frankenheimer had the chance of making the movie at all.
On a side note: 1966/67 also were the last seasons before the introduction of aerodynamics and other technological advancements. Granted: They had already made a huge step forward by moving the engine/transmission behind the driver, but other than that, pre-68 cars weren't all that sophisticated. So the racing was very "pure" and much more about the driver than about what kind of new gadget(s) the engineers had come up with.
S.
In the movie, the Jordan BRM team wins the US Grand Prix (Watkins Glen). The prize money was said to be $17,500.
Adjusted for 43 years of inflation, this would be worth approximately $225,000 in 2009 money.