At the end of the day, racing = Money + Talent More money you make, more skill you require to move up. More skill you get, more money you require to move up. The only problem is that money is 90% of the contributing factor.
some of the best drivers i've ever met/competed against have never been in a major league of racing (sim or IRL) and i've sim raced against pro drivers many times
The thing is that most "pro" racers, even in F1, don't need some "primary income from racing." They already grew up ultra rich and would never have to work a day in their life if they wanted to. They were just the best of their rich peers.
@@streambolt2467 No, if you're in F1, you're just doing that. A lot of the lower level Sportscar guys will have a coaching or instructing job somewhere.
@MrTL3wis So then is Zhou a pro racer? He races in F1, the pinnacle of mototsport, but paid $30m to do so. Is stroll pro considering he's only in F1 cuz his dad owns his team?
Its changed so much over the last 30 years. Look at the BTCC in the UK. In the late 90s the factorys like Ford , Honda , Nissan , BMW were paying drivers 300k a year to drive for them without the drivers bringing any money . Now the BTCC drivers have to find 500k to pay fot their drives and take 50 or 60k as a wage out of that money. In GT3 racing usually the AM driver will be a rich businessman who will fund the team and car and also pay the Pro driver.
It shows that the car industry is reaching its maturity. The market share is not increasing like 1960~1990s. New innovations doesn't improve cars performance dramatically either. The factories can not get more revenues from sponsoring the professional drivers.
@@xiaominsongHas nothing to do with the industry reaching any maturity. Racing has and always will cost money, for both drivers and manufacturers. Cars are developing at an obscene rate, i mean we have electric cars, hydrogen biofuel race cars, patents for six stroke combustion engines. As long as rulebooks are restricted, and emissions standards are present there will always be development. Things ten years down the road are being developed yesterday.
the other main issue is the vehicles are lasting longer. Meaning you need high turn over on the products to support/fund racing. If all the new vehicles last 20 years, you will not pull in the funds needed.
Not the whole story - the racing venues are spectacularly profitable, but they refuse to share their income with the people the spectators are coming to see. I think More Perfect Union did a video on it. No shortage of money being made through racing, but the tiny number of people who own a race series/venues/broadcasting rights have been keeping all the money for themselves to the detriment of the sport.
The fact that people even come out to watch amateurs race is great. There's only one NBA and to be there you have to be among the best. No one watches amateurs play basketball in a gym. It would be cool if amateur leagues could find a way to profit share but that would imply bringing something of value. If they think they are the value, then it should be easy enough to leverage that. Of course something tells me that's not the case because there are plenty of other hobbyists who would gladly replace them.
Great well explained video. Not enough people know this about our sport. A lot of smoke and mirrors. I like the point that a lot of drivers that pay their way are just as talented as the "pros". While it is true, a LOT of those you see on TV might be normal people operating on play money as their hobby, I think your POV is limiting to a lot of those in this industry, at every level no matter how public facing, who work hard to put food on the table doing this and are without a doubt professional drivers. These are coach/anchor drivers, drivers with sponsorships that don't get paid unless they provide marketable opportunities for the companies they represent (i.e. race, no way around it), and teams that use one "pro" car to promote their rental car. It's unfair to box these people as amateurs, because it is their job. Not a hobby. A professional is someone who does something for a living. A professional who races with and coaches an Am (who funds the team) is still a professional racecar driver because they are, in fact, racing a car and getting paid to do it. Heck, even "pay drivers" racing in the lower levels of the sport accept a salary off their funding and prize money based on results. No race organization or sanction that I know of is solvent enough to cover the costs of teams solely on winnings. "Factory" efforts are just marketing like every other company or individual investor that backs racers. By lumping any driver, no matter their talent or upbringing, in the box "amateur" because they accept their check from a source other than a manufacturer, or that they had more (or less) resources to get there than others, you eliminate a lot of talent at EVERY level of the sport and damage the sport. My $0.02.
This is why I just sim race. I gain so much development in my skill from a one time cost, and I still get the thrill of door to door racing. Ik its not the same as irl with the adrenaline, but the adrenaline and flow state really can hit you in the sim and give you that euphoria that we all chase.
@@freyafoxmusic yeah but you still need to buy the car (couple grand easy) to go racing. And car’s components need replacing with time. It’s not the case for sim racing. Once you get a sim rig you’re done investing basically for life.
This was a great break down. WRL has been an amazing experience for me the last 4-5 years. I know its as high as Ill ever go, but it scratches my itch just fine.
you should do a video on the path that those top level talent folks go through, how much it costs, and how more often than not the top, highest paid (NASCAR, F1, Indy) drivers had opportunities and funding that most people don't have access to. I.E. explain the costs to go from karting to F1 and how much each piece costs and the average sponsor package each team is actually able to secure.
That would be interesting! I tend to just do videos about things I know personally without having to do much research. That certainly would be out of my wheelhouse!
Excellent explanation! Two addenda that I can think of... One is that in road racing, and in Nascar as well now, there are 'factory' drivers who get their rides paid for and also draw a paycheck from the factory that has selected them, and that factory arranges their ride(s) in a car that is their brand, but still owned privately. They also have driver development programs that identify talent early on, in carting or entry level series, and then sign them and assist them in working their way up, to include data analysis training, fitness, PR training, etc. The second one is that in the world of short oval racing, both dirt and pavement, there ARE pro drivers who actually make their living as their own team owners. They usually have sponsors, but they also race for (sometimes) large purses and follow a pretty grueling tour schedule, like WOO, CARS, etc.. Oh, and finally there is drag racing, and I have NO earthly idea how ANYONE affords that, as it is incredibly expensive... Nitro can be $20 a gallon, and a funny car burns a mere 12 to 15 gallons over a 1,000ft run.That's 75 gallons to the mile for those of you that are too lazy to do the math. New tires after every ten runs @$2k a set. Supercharger explosion? $25k. New body? $75k - $100k. And first prize, after four qualifying and four round runs is $40k. It goes precipitously down from there, and everything blows up catastrophically about every three runs or so.
It was certainly helpful to squash dreams. lol. Nah. I grew up wanting to race professionally in the MX scene. I was very fast, and I was still under the false impression that the world worked as a meritocracy and that by being fast, I would automatically be successful in getting sponsors and moving up, etc. Being dead wrong about this was a foundational life lesson that still hurts to this day.
More GT drivers are professional than you probably realize. Even the ones not on factory teams can be factory drivers, for example Porsche factory drivers will go race for Manthey in the Nurburgring 24 even though its not the factory team.
I think the main difference between other sports like football/soccer, american football, basketball or similar and racing is that unlike in all those other sports, cost of entry to even PRACTICE to get better at it is pretty high. Even if you're already a skilled mechanic, and find a bargain cheapshit car that you'll modify for track racing, you're still looking at upwards of 5 grand to even get the car ready, before even going to a series. And this again already requires you to be 18+, a decent driver to even start learning the ropes, and generally you need to be good with people. Compare this to any other sport, an elementary school kid can just buy props to use to play that sport, and practice in a schoolyard or in his backyard. If the kid has a knack for it then it will show with time, and he can eventually get better to play professionally in his adulthood, and possibly for a net gain money wise. Again compare this to racing where if you want to get better as a kid, you better hope your parents already come from racing AND money and sign you into karting since you were the age of 10 or below all the way to adulthood. The price to pay is just incomparable. I think this explains such a disparity between the profitability and viewership of these sports too; you can instantly compare yourself to an NBA player and say "man he's so much better than me, but with just a basketball and a courtyard I can improve" where as with racing you see someone in a GT3 race seat in your youth and go "welp, fuck", and everyone sees it this way so the sport is not relatable nor profitable. It will always be like this, it's an inherent difference.
Very good video. You are not a 'Professional' until your PRIMARY INCOME comes from driving a racing car. Those people are very rare and it is a huge achievement to get there. I always have issue with people calling themselves a Pro when they are not earing their living from racing. If you get paid a little money you are a semi-pro and anything else you are an amateur. Does not sound as sexy but it is the truth.
The day that a kid will see fast cars roaring around the race track on TV and get inspired by it will later find out that he or she won’t be able to become like them while their friends & peers that play more typical sports have a better chance of going pro
A good friend once told me when I first started racing on tracks instead of the street that most real races lose far more races than they win. Not to let that discourage you. As you gain more experience you also begin gaining more wins. If you're racing and risking your life solely for money, in my opinion you're racing for the wrong reasons.
I dont know how it is in the US but in most "amateur" leagues in europe, in any sport in that regard, that I know, you pay a yearly fee to be part of the club + license to play in tournaments. So your topic can be applied to any sport imo.
I would like to preach the adage that this is a sport to be enjoyed like snowboarding/skiing, not some sort of half-assed attempt at a career. Its easy to believe that it can be a career with how many hours ppl put in, but it's a fallacy to associate skill and time/money spent to a return in investment.
I've always wondered about this particular thing in the way of Daniel Morad, the sim racing content creator who is a "professional" race car driver. No professional race car driver I'm aware of refers to themselves as a "professional" race car driver. They just say they are a race car driver. Yet he does this and he does it a lot. I know what his Wikipedia page says but despite how things are creatively worded, I still think his situation is one where he is actually paying to drive. Furthermore, there seems to be an effort present to shield this fact. Lord forgive me, if I am wrong. I don't know why it bothers me. It probably has more to do with me than it does him.
This is Pittsburgh International Race Complex. A newer track, but a very good one. It's similar to VIRginia International Raceway and I could see it hosting similar caliber events once the spectator facilities are built out more.
@@TaylorGoesFast it's gorgeous, like donington and cadwell park had a baby! some kind soul has made a mod for rfactor2 and someone else converted it to assetto corsa, this looks perfect for the road car races i like to host! edit: also grabbing virginia international. i'm very unfamiliar with american tracks but those two look like absolute gems.
There are a lot more "Pro" drivers that you missed. Many WEC, IMSA (all of the prototype drivers, many of the GT categories, Super Formula, Formula 2, and others)
A good example here is the recent Keanu Reeves news. He is not a "professional racer" now. It's the same as anyone else with a lot of money that wants to pay to race in GR Cup. Racing is a business, and more often than not, the racers are the customers, unlike ball sports where the spectators are the customers.
Great example, I was lucky enough to be a part of that team running him at Indy and he did incredibly well for only having a few days of training before he flew out to race. It does answer the question of what if someone with little to no experience was thrown in to a “pro” series. I was surprised how well Keanu did, only a few seconds the guys who are racing for their future in Motorsport who have known that chassis for years. Cody Jones was another example that weekend. They had an epic battle at the back!!
Very accurate, and it is often 6 figures to pay the pro. I tell the team I use all the time. I have no problem buying a 6 figure car. It’s 30K a weekend to race and you get paid, basically nothing. I just can’t justify it…
Colapinto is one of those cases where his talent is high enough for a team to sponsor his junior career. So far he’s made a very good case for teams potentially signing him for the 2026 season, and I’d be very much surprised if it doesn’t happen if he keeps up his current form
@@Fons.s I know, but it is clear that the drivers he is competing against do not have his talent but they do have enough money to help themselves a seat before him
@@FrannB not really though. Only Zhou and Stroll really currently. And Zhou won’t be in F1 next year. Colapinto has just gotten a bit unlucky with the timing
Grading drivers purely as am / pro is a bit blurry as, as the video states. However to measure skill level you can simply just use the FIA grading system which ranges from Bronze to Platinum. That will also tell you something if they are getting paid to race or not. But in speed and skill, there is a huge difference between a bronze and a silver driver and even bigger when you get up to gold (not to mention Platinum) You need to study the data and race some of these guys to understand the speed that they have.
Is it that different from traditional sports? On most levels, you have to pay your club a fee to be able to play and be a part of it. Only at the higher level do they get paid. It’s pretty similar with motorsports too, except sometimes the actual professionals are mixed in between the “amateurs”. True, the costs are much, much higher in motorsports than other sports
David Malukas in Indy Car is a good example. I knew him in karting. He is a talented driver. But would have never made it where he is now without his dads' money. And wouldn't be at Foyt racing without it. Sting Ray Robb was financing the whole Foyt operation. Just shy of 8 figures. Malukas could not have replaced him without bringing serious funding.
Excellent video. Racing at anything above the very bottom level of any kind is a very expensive hobby. Even the Aston Martin F1 team is basically a race team funded by Lance Stroll's daddy so Lance can be an F1 driver. About 20 or so years ago Bill Elliott noted that NASCAR Cup Series racing teams had become so expensive that if a team won every race of the season the prize money wasn't enough to break even. Sponsor money allows most racing teams to exist.
Make me laugh when people ask how much do you get for winning a race or how fast does it go 😂. You just know the conversation isn’t going much further. The M3 has done as much for racing as the MK1/2 escort did for world rallying. ❤
@@newagetemplar6100 when I say 130mph and they seem disappointed because they don't understand the magnitudes more money it costs to RACE something that does 150+
In F1 you have that cases.... In Red Bull you have a very well payed driver (Max) and a driver (Checo) who pays 20M a year to get the seat... also, Aston Martin has a payed one (Alonso) and a paying dad for Stroll...
Very interesting! I knew racing was expensive but didn't know the different types of ways you could race. What I find very unfortunate with racing is the fact that you can't race on a more casual or recreational level. I mean if you pay big money to race you have to have some level of ambition, imo. Sure you can do trackdays with your own car but that is not the same anyway. I guess some kind of go-kart racing is the closest to racing with little money.
Go to any regional "club" racing weekend and you'll see serious operations AND people who just happen to own a legal race car, have a race license, and go out there and putt around fairly casually. Yes, you have to have access to a race car, but you can find a race car for under $10,000 (it just may not be very good) and go race. Places like LeMons don't even require a racing license, although that's more spirited HPDE with a team survival component when compared to other forms of racing.
Even SOME F1 drivers have to pay to play ( Nikita Mazepin ). I raced a CHEAP series in SCCA ( Spec RX7 ) and it wasn't "cheap" but it was the best rush I have ever had.
That's how racing works now...driver will get sponsorship to pay for his drive and pay himself a salary out of that sponsorship. Fir example a BTCC driver will get 500k from sponsors and take out 60 or 70k wages. That's what a pro driver is nowadays
I'd make a distinction between privateers and amateurs. For some people its their job. They just aren't getting paid. Real amateurs I see more as the guy who still has a 9-5 and goes racing on the weekend. Heck, there are also teams that do it as part of a shop or even youtube channel that I think is fair to classify them differently. They just aren't getting paid for the specific act of driving. Maybe you call it R&D or content creation. The point really is they are able to dedicate that much time to it.
These are all nice ways to say "doesn't get paid to drive, but finds the money to drive through other means" at the end of day. You aren't wrong, but it slightly misses the point of the video.
@@TaylorGoesFast If it isn't who is a pro and who isn't you spend a lot of time talking about it. I'd also consider the above professionals. If its about who can make a living off racing, I think you missed some options. You've very narrowly defined a professional IMO.
@@ruleslawyer if someone pays to play baseball and they cover those expenses by making videos about baseball, you wouldn't call them a professional baseball player. You are close to agreeing with my point, but slightly off, in my opinion. I see your point with the "R&D" comment and could also see that explaining a shop that has a racer as a marketing expense, but even that's a bit fuzzy. Their profession is their shop and driving is enabled by it. People go through great lengths to try to glorify rich people who are just paying to race.
In the early days of motocross, they were looking for pros because the Europeans were coming to race and we had no pros!.. so they gave out licenses like Halloween candy.
You're right that there are very very few truly professional race car drivers. I disagree that other sports or activities are different though. I would guess an even lower percentage of basketball or baseball players are professionals than race car drivers. Even in the minor leagues you mention, my impression is most of those guys can only make a living by staying with host families, etc. And just being great at singing will not make you a professional musician.
Yeah, too many people act like professionals can't exist in the small-time or lesser-known to the mainstream motorsports. I'm a dirt oval race fan and sim race driver and modder, and there's even pros in that (though they are mostly in the big series for the Super Late Models, Northeast Big Block Modifieds, and 410 Sprint Cars, or reaaaallly well known independent drivers, key word reaaaallly), there's even professional sim race drivers. Nice to somehow make a living off of it. But they do indeed. Artwork on the other hand... after clawing my way to get commissions recently, I listed myself as a Professional on some art sites, even though I don't make that much. Heck, I even listed myself as a business owner for my art where I live. Some things like that are arbitrary, and you won't get in trouble for besides possibly getting cussed out on the Internet and maybe losing a few followers, but since I have a track record of having so many unpopular opinions and ideas around the Internet, I've accepted that I'm in the business of not making sense! 😆 But yeah, there's waaaay more Pro Auto Racing than NASCAR, IndyCar, and F1 folks. You just gotta look, and get interested! Coming from a 30-something lifelong race fan/sim race driver since the mid-90s.
Ive been racing in canadian SentraCup for couple seasons now and no one makes money at the end of the year except for the girls. And even then they barely finish even on their budget.
It's just money. The professionals are good, if they have karting and formula accolades, but money and luck is what gets you there. I have a whole list of current professionals that have finished behind me. But, to say that amateurs are as good as someone like joey hand or scott speed is just not true, you just don't know what to look for. Most amateurs, like misha as an example, make mistakes almost every corner or have fundemental style errors that top national level karters and professional hopefuls, star mazda champions etc, will notice immediately. There's things the average person doesnt even know that are second nature for people who grew up doing it from 5 years old. most amateurs dont even know what fast looks like. Just the truth. You can blame the banning of cigarette and alcohol sponsorships for a lot of the change seen in the early 2000s to now, and it's much worse in the US than Europe, especially in all forms of GT racing. IMSAs a joke, the challnge series are a joke, continental is a joke, VLN is a joke, it's really bad almost across the board. The true talent pool is actually quite small. Pay to Play straight up ruined the sport honestly. Then you have the nepotism, people like graham rahal whose money spent to lap time ratio is abysmal and has never done anything very noteworthy except maybe a skusa 80jr promoto championship? its all bad.
It is no difference between other Sports. If you wanne play Tennis, you have to buy a Tennis Bat, if you wanne drive Races, you have to buy a Race Car. With the differnce, that a Tennis Bat cost 100$, and a Race Car cost 100.000$. If you have no 100$ you can not play Tennis. Beside the Fact that it is more easy to earn 100$ than 100.000$
You can’t race in Formula 2 for 1.5 million. That’s the actual cost for a pro Team in F3. That’s insight knowledge from a friend Racing as Red Bull Junior today. You may want to correct that.
He's comparing something like WRL to SCCA super touring classes. F1 is only a couple dozen drivers. Sounds like you aren't involved in the motorsports world
@@ProjGR Did you watch the video? Because I did. Here this might be helpful for you 04:14 And throwing in an appeal to authority doesn't make you any more correct. It just makes you look ignorant.
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
I've won $40 from an autocross event.
means I'm a professional right?
Y E S
you're getting paid to have fun, good job
Did you make profit?
I’ve won $75 from a season of K1 Speed Challenge GP. means I’m a professional right?
Y E S P R O
DO YOU WANT TO KNOW HOW TO MAKE A SMALL FORTUNE IN MOTOR RACING?
START WITH A LARGE FORTUNE ;)
An old racing saying ;)
Yep. The high cost is even harder to pay off just by racing. Not like the career mode in a racing game, folks!
At the end of the day, racing =
Money + Talent
More money you make, more skill you require to move up.
More skill you get, more money you require to move up.
The only problem is that money is 90% of the contributing factor.
More like 99.99999999999% of the problem, cause without all of the money, you ain't doing jack s###
some of the best drivers i've ever met/competed against have never been in a major league of racing (sim or IRL) and i've sim raced against pro drivers many times
Professional = you are doing it as your profession, you are doing it for work.
"for work" to me implying it's your primary income. Otherwise, it's a hobby or side hustle you happen to make money doing.
@@TaylorGoesFast I think that's the correct definition.
The thing is that most "pro" racers, even in F1, don't need some "primary income from racing."
They already grew up ultra rich and would never have to work a day in their life if they wanted to.
They were just the best of their rich peers.
@@streambolt2467 No, if you're in F1, you're just doing that. A lot of the lower level Sportscar guys will have a coaching or instructing job somewhere.
@MrTL3wis So then is Zhou a pro racer? He races in F1, the pinnacle of mototsport, but paid $30m to do so. Is stroll pro considering he's only in F1 cuz his dad owns his team?
Its changed so much over the last 30 years.
Look at the BTCC in the UK.
In the late 90s the factorys like Ford , Honda , Nissan , BMW were paying drivers 300k a year to drive for them without the drivers bringing any money .
Now the BTCC drivers have to find 500k to pay fot their drives and take 50 or 60k as a wage out of that money.
In GT3 racing usually the AM driver will be a rich businessman who will fund the team and car and also pay the Pro driver.
it's really sad. I used to love watching 90s BTCC when I was a kid
It shows that the car industry is reaching its maturity. The market share is not increasing like 1960~1990s. New innovations doesn't improve cars performance dramatically either. The factories can not get more revenues from sponsoring the professional drivers.
@@xiaominsongHas nothing to do with the industry reaching any maturity. Racing has and always will cost money, for both drivers and manufacturers. Cars are developing at an obscene rate, i mean we have electric cars, hydrogen biofuel race cars, patents for six stroke combustion engines. As long as rulebooks are restricted, and emissions standards are present there will always be development. Things ten years down the road are being developed yesterday.
the other main issue is the vehicles are lasting longer. Meaning you need high turn over on the products to support/fund racing. If all the new vehicles last 20 years, you will not pull in the funds needed.
Not the whole story - the racing venues are spectacularly profitable, but they refuse to share their income with the people the spectators are coming to see. I think More Perfect Union did a video on it. No shortage of money being made through racing, but the tiny number of people who own a race series/venues/broadcasting rights have been keeping all the money for themselves to the detriment of the sport.
perfect union of all people eh? interesting information, particularly regarding the sparse media presence enjoyed by amateur racing
The fact that people even come out to watch amateurs race is great. There's only one NBA and to be there you have to be among the best. No one watches amateurs play basketball in a gym.
It would be cool if amateur leagues could find a way to profit share but that would imply bringing something of value. If they think they are the value, then it should be easy enough to leverage that.
Of course something tells me that's not the case because there are plenty of other hobbyists who would gladly replace them.
Great well explained video. Not enough people know this about our sport. A lot of smoke and mirrors. I like the point that a lot of drivers that pay their way are just as talented as the "pros". While it is true, a LOT of those you see on TV might be normal people operating on play money as their hobby, I think your POV is limiting to a lot of those in this industry, at every level no matter how public facing, who work hard to put food on the table doing this and are without a doubt professional drivers. These are coach/anchor drivers, drivers with sponsorships that don't get paid unless they provide marketable opportunities for the companies they represent (i.e. race, no way around it), and teams that use one "pro" car to promote their rental car. It's unfair to box these people as amateurs, because it is their job. Not a hobby. A professional is someone who does something for a living. A professional who races with and coaches an Am (who funds the team) is still a professional racecar driver because they are, in fact, racing a car and getting paid to do it. Heck, even "pay drivers" racing in the lower levels of the sport accept a salary off their funding and prize money based on results. No race organization or sanction that I know of is solvent enough to cover the costs of teams solely on winnings. "Factory" efforts are just marketing like every other company or individual investor that backs racers. By lumping any driver, no matter their talent or upbringing, in the box "amateur" because they accept their check from a source other than a manufacturer, or that they had more (or less) resources to get there than others, you eliminate a lot of talent at EVERY level of the sport and damage the sport. My $0.02.
This is why I just sim race. I gain so much development in my skill from a one time cost, and I still get the thrill of door to door racing. Ik its not the same as irl with the adrenaline, but the adrenaline and flow state really can hit you in the sim and give you that euphoria that we all chase.
a couple grand for a decent sim setup is a lot less than what you pay to go to the track. It takes a lot less time too
@@retrogamerdave362it depends. In Thailand at Chang circuit it’s $35 for track days lol
@@freyafoxmusic yeah but you still need to buy the car (couple grand easy) to go racing. And car’s components need replacing with time. It’s not the case for sim racing. Once you get a sim rig you’re done investing basically for life.
How much money does it take to go racing It takes all of it
This was a great break down. WRL has been an amazing experience for me the last 4-5 years. I know its as high as Ill ever go, but it scratches my itch just fine.
I've heard of WRL described as baby IMSA and that seems to track.
you should do a video on the path that those top level talent folks go through, how much it costs, and how more often than not the top, highest paid (NASCAR, F1, Indy) drivers had opportunities and funding that most people don't have access to. I.E. explain the costs to go from karting to F1 and how much each piece costs and the average sponsor package each team is actually able to secure.
That would be interesting! I tend to just do videos about things I know personally without having to do much research. That certainly would be out of my wheelhouse!
It’s very true that even running at normal track day it still requires a lot of funding on your own for normal workers.
Driving fast is a costly habit
Oh, God. Yes!
If my wife knew what I truly spent every year on my "hobby", she would probably divorce me. Hahaha! (It is easily 10% of my salary)
Lots of things learned from this. Thanks for sharing!
Excellent explanation! Two addenda that I can think of... One is that in road racing, and in Nascar as well now, there are 'factory' drivers who get their rides paid for and also draw a paycheck from the factory that has selected them, and that factory arranges their ride(s) in a car that is their brand, but still owned privately. They also have driver development programs that identify talent early on, in carting or entry level series, and then sign them and assist them in working their way up, to include data analysis training, fitness, PR training, etc.
The second one is that in the world of short oval racing, both dirt and pavement, there ARE pro drivers who actually make their living as their own team owners. They usually have sponsors, but they also race for (sometimes) large purses and follow a pretty grueling tour schedule, like WOO, CARS, etc..
Oh, and finally there is drag racing, and I have NO earthly idea how ANYONE affords that, as it is incredibly expensive... Nitro can be $20 a gallon, and a funny car burns a mere 12 to 15 gallons over a 1,000ft run.That's 75 gallons to the mile for those of you that are too lazy to do the math. New tires after every ten runs @$2k a set. Supercharger explosion? $25k. New body? $75k - $100k. And first prize, after four qualifying and four round runs is $40k. It goes precipitously down from there, and everything blows up catastrophically about every three runs or so.
It was certainly helpful to squash dreams. lol.
Nah. I grew up wanting to race professionally in the MX scene. I was very fast, and I was still under the false impression that the world worked as a meritocracy and that by being fast, I would automatically be successful in getting sponsors and moving up, etc. Being dead wrong about this was a foundational life lesson that still hurts to this day.
More GT drivers are professional than you probably realize. Even the ones not on factory teams can be factory drivers, for example Porsche factory drivers will go race for Manthey in the Nurburgring 24 even though its not the factory team.
Manthey is a factory team. It's *owned* by Porsche.. It USED to not be a factory team, but now it most certainly is.
@@seawolf9616 Even when it was officially a factory team, it's been factory supported by Porsche from like 2006 or before.
I think the main difference between other sports like football/soccer, american football, basketball or similar and racing is that unlike in all those other sports, cost of entry to even PRACTICE to get better at it is pretty high. Even if you're already a skilled mechanic, and find a bargain cheapshit car that you'll modify for track racing, you're still looking at upwards of 5 grand to even get the car ready, before even going to a series. And this again already requires you to be 18+, a decent driver to even start learning the ropes, and generally you need to be good with people.
Compare this to any other sport, an elementary school kid can just buy props to use to play that sport, and practice in a schoolyard or in his backyard. If the kid has a knack for it then it will show with time, and he can eventually get better to play professionally in his adulthood, and possibly for a net gain money wise. Again compare this to racing where if you want to get better as a kid, you better hope your parents already come from racing AND money and sign you into karting since you were the age of 10 or below all the way to adulthood. The price to pay is just incomparable.
I think this explains such a disparity between the profitability and viewership of these sports too; you can instantly compare yourself to an NBA player and say "man he's so much better than me, but with just a basketball and a courtyard I can improve" where as with racing you see someone in a GT3 race seat in your youth and go "welp, fuck", and everyone sees it this way so the sport is not relatable nor profitable. It will always be like this, it's an inherent difference.
Very good video. You are not a 'Professional' until your PRIMARY INCOME comes from driving a racing car. Those people are very rare and it is a huge achievement to get there. I always have issue with people calling themselves a Pro when they are not earing their living from racing. If you get paid a little money you are a semi-pro and anything else you are an amateur. Does not sound as sexy but it is the truth.
How unfortunate that many talented drivers would be automatically disqualified from being a pro due to the great expense of the sport.
The day that a kid will see fast cars roaring around the race track on TV and get inspired by it will later find out that he or she won’t be able to become like them while their friends & peers that play more typical sports have a better chance of going pro
Great video here, thanks for sharing!
A good friend once told me when I first started racing on tracks instead of the street that most real races lose far more races than they win. Not to let that discourage you. As you gain more experience you also begin gaining more wins. If you're racing and risking your life solely for money, in my opinion you're racing for the wrong reasons.
I dont know how it is in the US but in most "amateur" leagues in europe, in any sport in that regard, that I know, you pay a yearly fee to be part of the club + license to play in tournaments. So your topic can be applied to any sport imo.
I would like to preach the adage that this is a sport to be enjoyed like snowboarding/skiing, not some sort of half-assed attempt at a career. Its easy to believe that it can be a career with how many hours ppl put in, but it's a fallacy to associate skill and time/money spent to a return in investment.
I've always wondered about this particular thing in the way of Daniel Morad, the sim racing content creator who is a "professional" race car driver. No professional race car driver I'm aware of refers to themselves as a "professional" race car driver. They just say they are a race car driver. Yet he does this and he does it a lot. I know what his Wikipedia page says but despite how things are creatively worded, I still think his situation is one where he is actually paying to drive. Furthermore, there seems to be an effort present to shield this fact. Lord forgive me, if I am wrong. I don't know why it bothers me. It probably has more to do with me than it does him.
Mercedes pay Daniel to drive.
he is official driver for them.
I really hope racing in the future becomes more democratized and accessible for more people
what track is this?
This is Pittsburgh International Race Complex. A newer track, but a very good one. It's similar to VIRginia International Raceway and I could see it hosting similar caliber events once the spectator facilities are built out more.
@@TaylorGoesFast it's gorgeous, like donington and cadwell park had a baby! some kind soul has made a mod for rfactor2 and someone else converted it to assetto corsa, this looks perfect for the road car races i like to host!
edit: also grabbing virginia international. i'm very unfamiliar with american tracks but those two look like absolute gems.
There are a lot more "Pro" drivers that you missed. Many WEC, IMSA (all of the prototype drivers, many of the GT categories, Super Formula, Formula 2, and others)
A good example here is the recent Keanu Reeves news. He is not a "professional racer" now. It's the same as anyone else with a lot of money that wants to pay to race in GR Cup. Racing is a business, and more often than not, the racers are the customers, unlike ball sports where the spectators are the customers.
Great example, I was lucky enough to be a part of that team running him at Indy and he did incredibly well for only having a few days of training before he flew out to race. It does answer the question of what if someone with little to no experience was thrown in to a “pro” series. I was surprised how well Keanu did, only a few seconds the guys who are racing for their future in Motorsport who have known that chassis for years. Cody Jones was another example that weekend. They had an epic battle at the back!!
Very accurate, and it is often 6 figures to pay the pro. I tell the team I use all the time. I have no problem buying a 6 figure car. It’s 30K a weekend to race and you get paid, basically nothing. I just can’t justify it…
Even a Lewis or a Max doesn't get traded for millions like star strikers in football.
That’s some good info. I love me some facts. Cheers
Thank you for making this video
Franco Colapinto in F1 is the perfect example of that, raw talent, but not enough money
Colapinto is one of those cases where his talent is high enough for a team to sponsor his junior career. So far he’s made a very good case for teams potentially signing him for the 2026 season, and I’d be very much surprised if it doesn’t happen if he keeps up his current form
@@Fons.s I know, but it is clear that the drivers he is competing against do not have his talent but they do have enough money to help themselves a seat before him
@@FrannB not really though. Only Zhou and Stroll really currently. And Zhou won’t be in F1 next year. Colapinto has just gotten a bit unlucky with the timing
@@Fons.s What about Mick?
@@FrannB not in F1 currently, and I think it’s very unlikely he will be next year. But if he did get the seat, I’d agree with you
good video! I will say that font is not exactly easy on the eyes lol
good feedback. If there's one thing I am not, it's a good video editor :D
Grading drivers purely as am / pro is a bit blurry as, as the video states. However to measure skill level you can simply just use the FIA grading system which ranges from Bronze to Platinum. That will also tell you something if they are getting paid to race or not. But in speed and skill, there is a huge difference between a bronze and a silver driver and even bigger when you get up to gold (not to mention Platinum) You need to study the data and race some of these guys to understand the speed that they have.
Is it that different from traditional sports? On most levels, you have to pay your club a fee to be able to play and be a part of it. Only at the higher level do they get paid. It’s pretty similar with motorsports too, except sometimes the actual professionals are mixed in between the “amateurs”. True, the costs are much, much higher in motorsports than other sports
David Malukas in Indy Car is a good example. I knew him in karting. He is a talented driver. But would have never made it where he is now without his dads' money. And wouldn't be at Foyt racing without it. Sting Ray Robb was financing the whole Foyt operation. Just shy of 8 figures. Malukas could not have replaced him without bringing serious funding.
Sim racing it is 😉
Excellent video. Racing at anything above the very bottom level of any kind is a very expensive hobby. Even the Aston Martin F1 team is basically a race team funded by Lance Stroll's daddy so Lance can be an F1 driver. About 20 or so years ago Bill Elliott noted that NASCAR Cup Series racing teams had become so expensive that if a team won every race of the season the prize money wasn't enough to break even. Sponsor money allows most racing teams to exist.
Well, SimRacing for the win i guess
Make me laugh when people ask how much do you get for winning a race or how fast does it go 😂. You just know the conversation isn’t going much further.
The M3 has done as much for racing as the MK1/2 escort did for world rallying. ❤
@@newagetemplar6100 when I say 130mph and they seem disappointed because they don't understand the magnitudes more money it costs to RACE something that does 150+
Lance Stroll explained. Thank you.
In F1 you have that cases.... In Red Bull you have a very well payed driver (Max) and a driver (Checo) who pays 20M a year to get the seat... also, Aston Martin has a payed one (Alonso) and a paying dad for Stroll...
Very interesting!
I knew racing was expensive but didn't know the different types of ways you could race. What I find very unfortunate with racing is the fact that you can't race on a more casual or recreational level.
I mean if you pay big money to race you have to have some level of ambition, imo. Sure you can do trackdays with your own car but that is not the same anyway.
I guess some kind of go-kart racing is the closest to racing with little money.
Go to any regional "club" racing weekend and you'll see serious operations AND people who just happen to own a legal race car, have a race license, and go out there and putt around fairly casually. Yes, you have to have access to a race car, but you can find a race car for under $10,000 (it just may not be very good) and go race. Places like LeMons don't even require a racing license, although that's more spirited HPDE with a team survival component when compared to other forms of racing.
jarno opmeer is one of those limited by money, good thing he found his place on PSGL 😁
Ok, ok, it's all about the money, I get it. Now, what track is this?
Pittsburg
Even SOME F1 drivers have to pay to play ( Nikita Mazepin ). I raced a CHEAP series in SCCA ( Spec RX7 ) and it wasn't "cheap" but it was the best rush I have ever had.
Early experience is a huge thigh as well, not many parents can afford that.
This is extremely well said
I even heard of drivers transferring money to their team so that the team can pay them salary during the season.
Honda is paying VCARB $10 Million per season to employ Yuki.
That's how racing works now...driver will get sponsorship to pay for his drive and pay himself a salary out of that sponsorship.
Fir example a BTCC driver will get 500k from sponsors and take out 60 or 70k wages. That's what a pro driver is nowadays
I'd make a distinction between privateers and amateurs. For some people its their job. They just aren't getting paid. Real amateurs I see more as the guy who still has a 9-5 and goes racing on the weekend. Heck, there are also teams that do it as part of a shop or even youtube channel that I think is fair to classify them differently. They just aren't getting paid for the specific act of driving. Maybe you call it R&D or content creation. The point really is they are able to dedicate that much time to it.
These are all nice ways to say "doesn't get paid to drive, but finds the money to drive through other means" at the end of day. You aren't wrong, but it slightly misses the point of the video.
@@TaylorGoesFast If it isn't who is a pro and who isn't you spend a lot of time talking about it. I'd also consider the above professionals. If its about who can make a living off racing, I think you missed some options. You've very narrowly defined a professional IMO.
@@ruleslawyer if someone pays to play baseball and they cover those expenses by making videos about baseball, you wouldn't call them a professional baseball player. You are close to agreeing with my point, but slightly off, in my opinion. I see your point with the "R&D" comment and could also see that explaining a shop that has a racer as a marketing expense, but even that's a bit fuzzy. Their profession is their shop and driving is enabled by it. People go through great lengths to try to glorify rich people who are just paying to race.
In the early days of motocross, they were looking for pros because
the Europeans were coming to race and we had no pros!.. so they gave
out licenses like Halloween candy.
So true
You're right that there are very very few truly professional race car drivers. I disagree that other sports or activities are different though. I would guess an even lower percentage of basketball or baseball players are professionals than race car drivers. Even in the minor leagues you mention, my impression is most of those guys can only make a living by staying with host families, etc. And just being great at singing will not make you a professional musician.
Yeah, too many people act like professionals can't exist in the small-time or lesser-known to the mainstream motorsports. I'm a dirt oval race fan and sim race driver and modder, and there's even pros in that (though they are mostly in the big series for the Super Late Models, Northeast Big Block Modifieds, and 410 Sprint Cars, or reaaaallly well known independent drivers, key word reaaaallly), there's even professional sim race drivers. Nice to somehow make a living off of it. But they do indeed. Artwork on the other hand... after clawing my way to get commissions recently, I listed myself as a Professional on some art sites, even though I don't make that much. Heck, I even listed myself as a business owner for my art where I live. Some things like that are arbitrary, and you won't get in trouble for besides possibly getting cussed out on the Internet and maybe losing a few followers, but since I have a track record of having so many unpopular opinions and ideas around the Internet, I've accepted that I'm in the business of not making sense! 😆 But yeah, there's waaaay more Pro Auto Racing than NASCAR, IndyCar, and F1 folks. You just gotta look, and get interested! Coming from a 30-something lifelong race fan/sim race driver since the mid-90s.
Thus, its interesting to know that the best talent out there are then not even racing, shocking!! Probably why sim racing is so big now.
It's better to be a rich driver than a good driver, that's for sure.
So basically we need more fans which bring revenue to the sport which can in turn pay drivers as talented as me to be in a seat lol
Ah yes, the dark taint of racing.
VIR?
@@Class10Deztaz Pitt Race
Ive been racing in canadian SentraCup for couple seasons now and no one makes money at the end of the year except for the girls. And even then they barely finish even on their budget.
THIS VID HAS GONE VIRAL! 😱😂 ........ sort of 🙄🤣
The key is have a business with deep pockets and sponsor yourself 🤣
yup all accurate
It's just money. The professionals are good, if they have karting and formula accolades, but money and luck is what gets you there. I have a whole list of current professionals that have finished behind me.
But, to say that amateurs are as good as someone like joey hand or scott speed is just not true, you just don't know what to look for. Most amateurs, like misha as an example, make mistakes almost every corner or have fundemental style errors that top national level karters and professional hopefuls, star mazda champions etc, will notice immediately. There's things the average person doesnt even know that are second nature for people who grew up doing it from 5 years old. most amateurs dont even know what fast looks like.
Just the truth. You can blame the banning of cigarette and alcohol sponsorships for a lot of the change seen in the early 2000s to now, and it's much worse in the US than Europe, especially in all forms of GT racing. IMSAs a joke, the challnge series are a joke, continental is a joke, VLN is a joke, it's really bad almost across the board. The true talent pool is actually quite small. Pay to Play straight up ruined the sport honestly.
Then you have the nepotism, people like graham rahal whose money spent to lap time ratio is abysmal and has never done anything very noteworthy except maybe a skusa 80jr promoto championship? its all bad.
Example Lance Stroll and Nikita Mazepin for F1.
It is no difference between other Sports.
If you wanne play Tennis, you have to buy a Tennis Bat, if you wanne drive Races, you have to buy a Race Car.
With the differnce, that a Tennis Bat cost 100$, and a Race Car cost 100.000$.
If you have no 100$ you can not play Tennis.
Beside the Fact that it is more easy to earn 100$ than 100.000$
You can’t race in Formula 2 for 1.5 million. That’s the actual cost for a pro Team in F3. That’s insight knowledge from a friend Racing as Red Bull Junior today. You may want to correct that.
A season of F2 is $6M-$8M for a two car effort.
I race what I can afford, Playstation GT5
Nah, can't even afford iRacing.
I'm sorry, what the fuck? The difference between an F1 driver and your regular driver is, in fact, astronomical. What!?
He's comparing something like WRL to SCCA super touring classes. F1 is only a couple dozen drivers. Sounds like you aren't involved in the motorsports world
@@ProjGR Did you watch the video? Because I did. Here this might be helpful for you 04:14
And throwing in an appeal to authority doesn't make you any more correct. It just makes you look ignorant.