Who wouldn’t want a salary of 846.520 US dollars per hour?
I bet nobody would say ‘no thanks’ to that.
But that is exactly what the Indianapolis 500 winner Will Power has earned during this year’s race, if you divide the prize money by the duration of the race.
The race was just short of three hours, and the Aussie won the nice amount of 2.525.454 US dollars.
On a small side note, the Qualifying was part of the sum too.
That is why Pole man Ed Carpenter not only could be happy with second position in the race, if that is something to be happy about, but also 911.504 US dollars.
The split of prize money isn’t linear to the finishing position in the race, but has factors like leading a lap in the race too. That is why Sebastien Bourdais scored 348.829 US dollars, even though he retired and was scored in 28th, while Helio Castroneves in P27, who didn’t lead the race at any point, only could take 205.305 US dollars home.
The minimum amount amongst the participants was for Conor Daly, James Davidson, Jay Howard and Jack Harvey, who scored 205.305 US dollars each.
The Indy 500 race is the single event, where you can win the highest amount of prize money. The Daytona 500 winner in NASCAR nets around 1,5 million US dollars, even though the race takes marginally longer.
But the prize money doesn’t always roll straight into the driver’s account. Most teams have a clause in the contract, stating the some of the prize money will go to the team – especially the smaller teams, where some of the prize money will part-fund their programme.