This is one of the more counter-intuitive parts of F1's economics: a driver who wins a race on Sunday doesn't trigger any prize-money payment tied to that specific result. The Constructors' Championship table at the end of the season is what determines the payout — win or lose any single Grand Prix, what actually moves the money is where a team's combined car finishes in the standings by December.
The pool itself — reported around $1.6 billion annually — is split roughly along these lines:
- The large majority is distributed by final constructors' championship position, with the champion earning the biggest share and each subsequent position earning progressively less.
- A separate, smaller pool rewards "long-standing" competitors — teams with a long history in the sport get an additional cut independent of where they finished that year.
- Ferrari specifically receives an additional historic/heritage payment, a legacy term dating back decades in F1's commercial agreements, tied to its status as the only team to have competed in every F1 season since 1950.
Because the payout is proportional and season-long rather than race-by-race, a team's financial year can look completely different from its headline results — finishing 2nd instead of 3rd in the standings is worth real money even if neither position produced a single race win.