F1 2025 Prize Money: Ferrari Top the Table Despite McLaren’s Title Triumph

McLaren won both world championships in 2025. Ferrari didn’t win a single race. Yet when Liberty Media published its full year financial results, Ferrari is reported to have walked away with the biggest cheque on the grid, an estimated $277.7 million against McLaren’s $165.8 million. The Concorde Agreement is private and none of these figures are officially confirmed. Understanding why the numbers look the way they do requires looking past the trophy cabinet entirely.

Key Points – F1 2025 Prize Money

• Liberty Media’s confirmed F1 revenue for 2025 was $3.87 billion, up 14% year on year from $3.41 billion in 2024
• Approximately 45% of that revenue is distributed to teams as prize money
• Liberty’s filings show $1.4 billion in team payments as a distinct line item. A separate $50 million Concorde incentive payment sits outside that figure. Total distributions across both lines reached approximately $1.45 billion
• Ferrari is reported to have topped the table at $277.7 million despite winning no races in 2025
• McLaren ranked fourth at a reported $165.8 million despite holding both world championships
• Mercedes collected an estimated $230.8 million, including around $112 million in legacy hybrid era bonuses
• Red Bull received a reported $202.9 million, with roughly $74.7 million tied to historical performance payments
• Cadillac’s 2026 arrival splits the pool 11 ways. McLaren’s total projected payment drops from $165.8 million to around $127.9 million
• Liberty Media completed the $3.1 billion acquisition of MotoGP parent Dorna Sports in July 2025
• Sponsorship exceeded 20% of F1’s primary revenue for the first time since Liberty acquired the sport

The Full Reported 2025 Prize Money Table

Why Ferrari Tops the Table

This is where it gets complicated, and where the Concorde Agreement does its most controversial work.

Every team receives a base share from a sliding-scale pool built on the previous season’s Constructors’ Championship position. In 2025 that base pool is reported to sit at around $1.05 billion after additional payments are removed. Liberty’s filings record team payments as a $1.4 billion line item, with a further $50 million Concorde incentive payment sitting separately outside that figure, confirmed in the filing’s OIBDA reconciliation. These are distinct items, not a combined total.

Ferrari doesn’t just draw from the base pool. It is widely reported to hold a base five percent payment written into every Concorde Agreement, a legacy arrangement that predates Liberty Media’s ownership entirely. On top of that, it is believed to have collected a further $70 million tied to its performances across the preceding decade.

Combined, those legacy payments are reported to push Ferrari’s total to $277.7 million. More than McLaren. More than Red Bull. More than Mercedes. All without winning a race in 2025.

Mercedes sits second on the reported table at $230.8 million. A large portion of that, estimated at around $112 million, reflects its hybrid era dominance. Eight consecutive Constructors’ titles between 2014 and 2021 built a contractual income stream that is still paying out years later.

Red Bull is reported at $202.9 million, with around $74.7 million tied to its own historical bonus payments. Legacy performance rewarded in cash, long after the results were scored.

McLaren, as 2024 Constructors’ Champions, received the largest slice of the base pool, estimated at around $147.1 million or 14 percent of that $1.05 billion. But its historical bonus was just $18.7 million. One top-three finish in a decade, third place in 2020, is all it had to show in that calculation. Total reported figure: $165.8 million. Fourth on the list.

Win the championship. Finish fourth in the payments. That is what the legacy structure does.

Just How Big Is Liberty Media’s Operation

When Liberty took over Formula 1 from CVC Capital Partners in 2017, annual revenue was around $1.8 billion. For 2025, Liberty’s own filings confirm $3.87 billion. That is a growth of nearly $2 billion in eight years, and 2025 marks the fifth consecutive year of revenue growth under their ownership.

Q4 2025 generated $1.38 billion in F1 revenue, confirmed as a record single quarter. Operating income for the full year came in at $632 million, up 28%. Adjusted OIBDA hit $946 million, up 20%.

Live viewership was up 21% compared to 2024. Fan attendance reached 6.75 million, up 4% year on year. The Las Vegas Grand Prix sold out again, with over 300,000 attending the weekend and race content generating 1.8 billion social impressions.

The revenue breakdown tells its own story. Media rights fees led at 31.3% of total F1 revenue. Race promotion came in at 26.7%. Sponsorship hit 21.7%, the first time it has exceeded 20% of primary revenue since Liberty acquired the sport.

And then there is MotoGP. Liberty completed the acquisition of Dorna Sports in July 2025 in a deal totalling $3.1 billion, taking an 84% stake. MotoGP generated $573 million in revenue on a pro-forma basis, up 14%. That is two of the biggest motorsport championships in the world under one commercial roof.

The Cost Cap and What It Did to the Sponsorship Market

The cost cap introduced in 2021 removed the performance risk from the sponsorship equation.

Before it, a brand could invest heavily in a team and see that exposure disappear into the midfield if results collapsed. That is not a calculation a CFO signs off on comfortably.

The cost cap compressed the competitive field. The gap between first and last narrowed. A brand investing in any team can now make a credible case for consistent exposure across a 24-race season.

LVMH signed a ten-year deal across the sport, confirmed as the largest commercial partnership in Formula 1 history. Aramco embedded at the top level. Mastercard joined McLaren as a naming partner in 2025 and becomes the team’s title sponsor from 2026. These are board-level commitments from businesses that have concluded the $3.9bn business is now a stable place to invest.

The US fanbase reached 52 million in 2024. Forty-seven percent of new US fans are aged 18 to 24. Over half are female. Brands that want access to that audience are coming to Formula 1 to get it.

Hosting Fees, Las Vegas, and the Direct Promotion Model

The prize money pool grows because Liberty Media has been steadily raising the price of being part of Formula 1.

Hosting fees are rising sharply. Established races are paying more to stay on the calendar. New entrants are paying significant premiums. Demand for a Formula 1 race now outstrips available calendar slots.

Las Vegas operates on a different model. Formula 1 Management acts as promoter, controlling ticketing, hospitality, sponsorship inventory, and ancillary commercial activity directly. Liberty’s filings confirm that Las Vegas revenue is recognised directly in their results, with $33 million in Grand Prix Plaza rental income recorded in 2025.

No promoter taking a cut means the full commercial ceiling of the weekend flows back into the revenue pool.

The F1 Movie, Apple, and a Partnership That Reshaped US Rights

The F1 film grossed $633.2 million worldwide. The highest-grossing sports film in history. Apple’s biggest ever theatrical release.

Sponsorship placements within the film are estimated to have generated at least $40 million back into the sport. That feeds directly into the prize money pool.

In October 2025, Apple secured exclusive US broadcasting rights for Formula 1 for five years starting 2026, reported at around $140 to $150 million per season. ESPN’s previous deal was worth around $85 to $90 million annually, representing roughly a 50 to 70% increase depending on the reported figure used.

US rights income has nearly doubled in a single cycle, and Formula 1 now sits inside the world of a $3 trillion company.

What Changes in 2026

Cadillac arrives for 2026.

Under the Concorde Agreement, all teams are eligible for prize money from their first season. Cadillac negotiated a reported $450 million anti-dilution payment, equating to $45 million paid to each of the existing ten teams.

From 2026, the base pool splits 11 ways instead of 10. Using 2025 figures as a guide, McLaren’s projected payment drops from around $165.8 million to around $127.9 million.

The anti-dilution payment is a one-time offset. If revenue growth stagnates, dilution will be felt more sharply in future cycles.

F1 revenue grew $462 million year on year in 2025 alone. If that trajectory holds, the expanded pool should absorb the 11th team. But growth is not guaranteed.

The Coffee Corner Take

Liberty Media is the commercial arm of Formula 1. Growing revenue is the job.

The FIA governs the sport. The teams compete. Liberty handles the commercial rights. Three entities. Three agendas. All three have to reach agreement for anything meaningful to change.

Liberty is obligated to distribute approximately 45 percent of annual F1 revenue back to the teams. Every year. Think about what that actually means. Imagine any other company handing back nearly half its turnover as a mandatory payment to its commercial partners annually. They cannot retain it, reinvest it, or bank it. It goes back to the paddock.

Which means every commercial deal, every hosting agreement, every broadcast negotiation, every film partnership flows directly back to the paddock. The teams are not passive recipients. They are active stakeholders in Liberty’s commercial success. The F1 movie worked because every team opened their doors, knowing a successful film meant a bigger pool at year end. That is a business model working exactly as designed.

The risks are real. Media rights inflation. Sponsor saturation. Calendar fatigue. Revenue growth plateauing.

The legacy structure is imperfect. Ferrari earning more than McLaren after a winless season is a hard sell.

But the size of the pool matters.

Teams that were financially fragile a decade ago are now posting profits. Sauber, tenth in the Constructors’ Championship, still collected a reported $63.1 million.

The floor has risen for everyone. The numbers point in that direction.