Well, there it is, I said it. An unpopular opinion, perhaps, but a reasonable one. Allow me to explain.
It’s one of the hottest topics on the Formula 1 table as we wait for the Imola Grand Prix, which will mark the debut of Franco Colapinto in the 2025 season, and also the first race without Jack Doohan on the grid.
Amid the change, and all the other topics that have made headlines, like sustainability, affordability, green energies, and Netflix reality shows, people have forgotten what F1 is: A rich man’s Sport.
Don’t be fooled by the confetti and fun Instagram posts; this has been and remains the case 75 years after the series’ inception. Consequently, the old rules still hold: either you are good enough to race the car, or you have enough money to offset your performance. Doohan could do neither.
Let’s talk numbers
We must go beyond the camera flashes and scripted debates to see the actual dynamics of one of the most expensive and lucrative sports.
The old adage says: Up to F1 you pay to race, and if you make it to F1 you get paid to race. Now, this isn’t entirely accurate; you also need deep pockets in F1, but we will make that point shortly. First, let’s reevaluate just how complex and expensive this business is.
Karting sets the foundations for all professional drivers, with an average cost for a seven-year career of $300,000 to $400,000. Now, if you are good enough, have secured some sponsors, or your wallet isn’t empty, you can move to race in your regional Formula 4 series, which will ask for an extra $200,000.
Should you deliver incredible performance in a very competitive environment, you make it to regional Formula 3, oh yeah, this is not FIA F3, this is European F3 or Formula Renault, which will charge a fee of $300,000 to $400,000 per season, and you will likely spend at least two years here.
Now you are close, stepping officially into FIA Formula 3, and it’s you against 30 young drivers who are all paying about $600,000 each season just to get a shot. But no matter, let’s say you are that driver, the one who stands out and is considered the generation’s talent, so you are promoted to the FIA Formula 2. Congratulations, we will need your signature and around $2,000,000 USD to get you started for this season.
See, you haven’t made it to F1 yet, and you have spent millions already. How much of this money will come out of your pocket or sponsors depends on how good you are and how business-savvy your managers are.
Excellent, we now have a sense of all the business behind every driver, let’s see some real examples of just how much the old rule still rings true.
Example A: Mazepin
Don’t we miss this guy, am I right? The one who brought a funny crash to each racing weekend. His short-lived performance remains one of the worst in F1 modern history, 0 points in 21 races, and an average race finish in 18th position. From the car alone, he cost the team a whopping 2.7 million in damages during his 2021 season.
Fair to say, his Haas was not fast, but his colleague Mick Schumacher outperformed him at every race, with an average gap of 1.5s per Sector in qualifying. In his first three races, he had spun 11 times and had only finished ahead of drivers who had retired their cars or crashed. Currently, he still holds the record for the fastest driver ever to crash on his debut by himself, just after 3 turns in the 2021 Bahrain GP.
It was clear that he was not what Haas needed to succeed. However, despite all the crashes and poor results, his pockets were so deep that he didn’t only paid to stay for a full season, but the American team was so desperate for funding that he got to do it while carrying his national flag on the car (the Russian flag).
That’s how far money can take you in F1. But who knows how much further had Russia not been unofficially banned from the sport after the beginning of the war.
Example B: Niki Lauda
The gall to put a 4-time world champion next to Nikita Mazepin, right? Well, it just so happens that one of the sport’s heroes started his journey as a paid driver.
Indeed, this is how they are called, drivers who put enough money on the table to get a seat in an F1 car despite not always being the best option from a performance or experience perspective. Niki would become one of the best F1 drivers in the sport’s history, but had it not been for his family’s wealth (and life insurance) that secured him a loan to pay for his seat, no one would know his name today.
He paid a modest 20.000£, which comes around $400,000 adjusted for today’s inflation, just to get his first seat in the March Formula 1 team back in 1972. Yet just one year later, the Austrian took another loan for a staggering $1.2 million in today’s terms (£80,000) as backing to secure his seat at the BRM Formula 1 team.
His moves, while bold, paid off: BRM agreed to pay him an annual salary of £30,000 to drive for the team (and ease his debts), and would eventually catch the eye of Il Commendatore himself, signing him for Ferrari in 1974, no payment needed.
What’s important here is that we should not undermine, hide, or feel ashamed to say just how big of a role money plays in this sport. With all of these financial pressures on his mind, Niki Lauda had to drive and try to win at every race. Franco Colapinto and Jack Doohan are no exceptions to this. They both climbed through the ranks and are aware of just how much money is at stake here. Granted, nowadays drivers don’t take loans against their life insurance to race, but it’s either their family’s money or sponsor backing, which can go away as quickly as it came.
We as spectators naturally focus on the thrill of the moment and the love for the sport, forgetting that all the arrangements and sponsor deals are conducted in close doors. Yet this was made very clear to Doohan when he started the season, you can be sure of it.
Doohan V Colapinto
Going back to the protagonists of our debate, let’s break down their figures and start making sense of Alpine’s decision.
Financially speaking, there are no official figures, but it’s been reported that both of them have roughly the same numbers backing them, which comes around $7-9 million each. In Doohan’s case, the backing comes mostly from his family and Alpine itself, as he was an Alpine Academy driver, which essentially acts as a sponsor because the team considered him a worthy candidate.
For Colapinto, the list is not so short; his family is clearly far from wealthy, and most of the backing rather came from sponsors such as Globant, YPF, MercadoLibre, Bizarrap (a famous composer), and many others. While attractive for its business potential, this is a double-edged sword, as Colapinto will be held accountable by many businessmen in fine navy suits.
Performance-wise, we got a bit lucky for the measurement if considering that the 2025 Alpine car is roughly equivalent to the 2024’s Williams, which could only aspire to beat the Saubers and perhaps the Haas. The argument could be made that the Argentine has a slight edge over Doohan with five points scored in his first six races and best-race finish in 8th place, while the Aussie leaves the series with zero points to his name and 13th place being his best F1 finish.
We also need to consider their damages costs or the ‘destructors championship’ as the fans call it. In his nine races, Colapinto cost Williams a staggering estimate of 3.4 million in damages, most notably due to his hard crash in the Brazil GP. Doohan follows behind with a scary 1.5 million between the crashes of his six races behind the A525, primarily due to his history-marking spectacular crash when he attempted to go flat out on Susuka’s Turn 1 with the DRS on (allegedly he claimed it worked in the sim).
A bonus point is awarded to Franco Colapinto on the battle for Alpine’s second seat, because he is not only bringing many heavy sponsors, but he also has one of the biggest fan bases in the whole paddock. To give you some numbers as to how much this weighs for Marketing, PR and team reputation, back when Colapinto joined Williams; The official Williams Instagram account went from 600.000 followers to 3.7 million (a 516% increase) plus his own account received an extra 1.4 million followers too, and since his promotion to Alpine, travel agencies reported a 314% increase on interest for trips to Sao Paulo to see the 2025 Brazil Grand Prix.
It is the clear that the fan mania and engagement for the Argentine driver is everything an F1 Marketing team could dream of and more. Matter of fact, they are already taking advantage of the endless marketing opportunities to exploit, such as Renault’s most recent announcement naming Colapinto as the official ambassador of the Renault Esprit Alpine for the entire Latam market.
Back to Jack
Was Doohan a bad driver? Certainly not. His six-race run was far from impressive, but it showed that when he was on point, he had some true wheelmanship in his hands, but that is not enough.
We are all grown adults here; this is F1: You are either good for business because you have some money, but impress everyone with your bold skills behind the car, or you are good for business because you have plenty of money and are somewhat decent with the car. The business always wins in Formula 1.
Of course, Briatore most clearly favored Colapinto over Doohan, but even if it had been the other way around, Briatore’s support can only take you so far. Perhaps two or three more races, or just one more crash without DRS, but the results Doohan desperately needed six races ago were not about to magically appear in the seventh or eighth race.
As we discussed before, the pressure from Sponsors, Team Management, and Fans’ discontent would start mounting up to a hill Doohan’s skill and money could not climb. All while having one of the most impressive rookies on reserve that is sitting on a mountain of new sponsor cash and heavy PR support as discussed before, where the Argentine effectively has an entire country known for it’s raw passion who is devoted to watch and cheer for him at every race (in similar fashion to Argentina’s love for Football, and winning).
Now, the history repeats itself with the Argentine; only five confirmed races in the same car, same odds, and presumably similar amount of financial backing as Doohan. He either makes the difference with his skill behind the wheel, or needs to find something else to do.
Today we explained the story of Jack Doohan in the same way we may need to do so in the future for Franco Colapinto or any other driver in a similar position, because some things just never change in this sport.
Time to grow up. Understand that should Franco Colapinto put in a bad show for Alpine and get demoted, we will arrive at the same obvious conclusion as we did for the Aussie driver because sometimes Formula 1 is that simple: Cash or Skill.
Jack Doohan’s demotion was not unfair; it was unsurprising, and now you know why.
