Who's the most overrated and over hyped driver?

[Jay]

oops, I think you're right about F3 being lower than Atlantic as the figure I was looking at was in American dollars and I was thinking in Canadian, that is about $640,000USD per year per car(about £400,000). That said, the figure I have for a full season of F3 here is a minimum of £390,000/season...which is about on par with Atlantic.

I just assumed F3000 would have a much higher budget than F3, but what would a season of F3000 cost?

[Russfeld]

Assuming we're talking championship winning drives in all three series

Atlantics - 1mil
F3000 - 1mil
F3 - 600k

[jiggly_puff]

Originally posted by El_Gibleto
James Courtney.

AMEN!

and takuma sato - whatever was all the fuss about!

[Jay]

If those figures are correct, F3000 is much more economical series than I thought...

I was looking at the cost to get a competitive entry. Although I'm pretty sure Hylton (I'd consider them one of the top teams), was operating with a budget of less than one million US per car. And most of the other entries would be operating on much tighter budgets (hard to believe if you saw Hylton towards the end of the season...)

Anyway, figures aside, my original point was that David Rutledge wasn't overrated, and I stand by it. He had his time in Atlantic mostly payed by sponsors and scholarships, and like many, he just hasn't been able to come up with them for something in F3000 or Cart.

[Russfeld]

F3000, in a way, is a ripoff. There's no testing, there's almost no technology inthe cars, there's only 10 races, and there isnt *that* much travel. Each car is only allowed I think 2 engines per year, there's a limit on tires, etc. So I dont know where they are spending all the money.

[Jay]

Interesting... I always thought of F3000 as being a little higher budget than that because it's so closely linked to F1, but guess not. I guess it's similar to the way Atlatnic is a long way down from Cart. About travel though, from a North American's point of view, there isn't much travel in any of the European series.

[JR Ewing]

Originally posted by Russfeld
Assuming we're talking championship winning drives in all three series

Atlantics - 1mil
F3000 - 1mil
F3 - 600k

These may be top-line press quotes but turn up with some cash and they are well over the top. Especially the F3 and F3000 figures.

Robbie Kerr - £600K. Ho Ho. I think not. More like £200k....

You can drive with a good 3000 team for well less than the F3 figure quoted too.....

[Russfeld]

so who's paying the rest of Kerr's budget then? You're gonna drop at least 200k on car, engine, and tires a year.

[Fiorentina 1]

The budget depends on the driver in Europe. I.E a nobody pays full price, while a potential championship winning driver might get subsidised by the team. This senario rarely works in the states, the team owners there want the MONEY!

[Russfeld]

Yeah but without another source of income, Alan Docking is gonna be hard pressed to make the team last the year. Then again im sure Mayall and Tor Whateverhisnameisthisweek paid a little 'extra'

[nev]

Originally posted by Russfeld
Tor Whateverhisnameisthisweek paid a little 'extra'

Hang on a second -- is it not enough that you take the rip out of drivers tallents that you have to take the rip out of their names as well - how sad can you be -- its GRAVES and hes a really nice bloke so just think about what your saying before you slag them off

[El_Gibleto]

Well said "Nev", I agree Tor is a great guy, a million times more interesting than most of the drivers.

[Muppet]

Tor got me into Zandvoort last year so he's top of my Christmas card list! ;-)

[Russfeld]

I wasnt slagging him off, I was saying I couldnt spell/pronounce his original name. And i think we'd all agree he's not the brightest talent out there. You guys need to seperate ability from personality in this thread.

[Super Tourer]

Isn't Alan Docking running one of the Red Bull prize winners in F3 (Scott Speed?), so that should swell the coffers.

The trend in F3 is to run a multi car team (3 cars) as running additional cars doesn't significantly increase the team costs, travel & personnel are all covered by the first two cars - so the third car def increases the viability of the team.

Typically a team may have one driver on full budget, maybe another on a reduced budget and possibly a real racer on a cost plus a bit deal. The racer being your 'advert' for what the team can do and therefore improve your prospects for the following season.

Don't know about F3, but in some of the lower formulae, drivers and their sponsors often do their own deal with some suppliers and are invoiced direct, small teams like this as it avoids them being left with a tyre bill,etc should the driver run out of budget.

[String]

I know we have all moved on a bit here, but... I think high contrast knows bugger all about racing! apart from a few other things he/she has said, McNish dose deserve a hell of a lot of praise, he may have had a tough time if F1, but Jesus, the guy has stuck at his goal when others would have given up, he nearly made it into F1 from F3 back in 89, and only really slipped up in F3000 with Dams, when they had a **** year with the Lola. Years later he gets in with the factory Porsche team and makes all the right moves to help them win Le Mans! An amazing achevement on anyones CV.

Wake up contrast! and think before you blurb!