Can someone explain the basics regarding teams and sponsorships regarding Indycar?

[Gazi]

Newbie here, please bear with me here. My questions may sound a little confusing so for some clarity I'll randomly use Mike Conway/Andretti Autosport as an example.

1. What are the benefits of Conway being part of a multi-driver team, such as Andretti Autosport?

2. What factors determine or make an driver like Conway more appealing to a team like Andretti Autosport?

3. Is Conway and his entire crew (engineers, pit crew, etc.) now part of Andretti Autosport or does Conway have an entirely new crew?

4. Who does Andretti Autosport employ? (not looking for names but job titles, ie driver, engineer, etc)

5. What factors played a role in Tony Kanaan not re-joining Andretti Autosport?

Thanks for any insight!

[Mightyreds]

1) Being part of a multi-car team should provide more feedback for setting up the car. Four samples are better than one, although I'm not sure how much set up help you would get from Marco or Danica. Interesting to hear that Cannon kept talking Kanaan out of making changes to the car, maybe his former teammates will benefit from not having Tony's incite?

2) The size of his cheque, followed closely by his driving skill. With some other teams the driving skill is a distant second.

3) Don't know.

4) Lot's of people.

5) He was getting paid a large amount of money to finish sixth and Mikey figured RHR or Marco could do that for a lot less money.

[Gazi]

Thanks for your reply.

Does Andretti Autosport pay the drivers a salary on top of what the driver wins from the races?

What does the driver pay for when they're part of a larger team vs. being a 1 driver team?

I know there are probably other variables that come into play, but I'm trying to develop a general understanding of how things work.

[MDS]

There is a mix going on right now. I'm not entirely certain how the other Penske driver's contracts are structured, but under Helio's five year deal he signed with Penske that became public record but Helio got a base salary with incentives for hitting certain performance goals. Its a safe assumption that Ryan Brisco and Will Power have similar contracts.

There are a number of drivers who are paid by the team probably include the Penske guys, Scott Dixon and Dario Franchitti, Marco Andretti, Ryan Hunter, Alex Tagliani, JR Hildabrand, Vitor Meria, Sebastien Bourdais, and Ed Carpenter. Typically the driver gets paid when the team has enough financial resources to hire the driver they want. Andretti, Penske and Ganassi are all old school so I would bet their contracts are incentive based and their drivers get a share of the merch sales

Without knowing the specific contracts of the teams I would assume the rest of the drivers in the field aren't paid by the team because they technically employ the team. Graham Rahal, Charlie Kimball, Justin Wilson, Ana Beatriz, Tony Kannan, E.J. Viso, Takuma Sato, James Jakes and potentially Danica Patrick all brought at least some sponsorship to their respective teams.

What can happen when a driver brings a sponsor to a team is they get finder fees, usually 10 percent of the total sponsorship, and are then are treated contracted employees. The other option is that the driver runs the sponsorship through them. Say that Service Central is paying Graham $6 million. Graham might take a percentage around the top, his agent takes 10-15 percent, and so out of the $6 million Service Central pays Graham might give Ganassi $5 million for the team to field cars for him in 2011 and beyond.

When someone out and out buys a ride with private funds, like Sebastien Saavadera and potentially Mike Conway, is that the driver doesn't get paid. They might get a percentage of the purse but that would be it. Typically whoever is backing them gives them a stipend of some kind.

Also its not uncommon for drivers to not get paid. Tags has said several times that he didn't draw a salary for the two years he was racing for Derrick Walker under the Team Australia banner. I would suspect that Bourdais is racing for free, or at least below his fair market value, but isn't putting any money into the ride.

I'm not privy to any details about the contractual setup of any driver, other than what I read during Helio's court case. Whether or not Danica is a paid AA employee probably is determined by who found Go Daddy, and all indications are that she got them to step up and she technically bought her ride. Same thing for Simona de Silvestro, don't know who found Entergy, if it was Keith Wiggins or a combined effort he's probably got her locked into a contract, if Simona found the sponsorship on her own I suspect she'd have Conway's spot.

I'm not certain about any of the KV drivers either. EJ brought sponsorship and Takuma has Honda money so I would suspect they are getting paid by sources other than KV, but that depends how much money Lotus is providing and how Geico got into the mix.