Co-Driver salary

[Sulland]

How is the issue of Co-Driver salary work?

Are teams paying drivers a lump sum per year/month and the drivers will negotiate payment of Co-Drivers directly with them?

Are Co-drivers payed directly from the team, and negotiated with the team, separatly from driver?

Someway else?

[dupanton]

Most codrivers are paid by the driver.

But like Martijn Wydhaeghe is probably different, as he was already working for Hyundai before he got "hired" by Neuville.

[240RS]

Famously in the late '90s, Nicky Grist was rumored to be on a deal equivalent to 25% of Colin McRae's salary when the Scot signed for Ford. The contract was with the driver and not the team.

[bennizw]

I did a two hour video interview with Nicky Grist last spring when covid was locking down Europe. Among loads of interesting stories, he told me that he always had a contract with the team/manufacturer - never via the driver. Obviously he never said anything about the sums, but he was doing well put it that way.

See it here: https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/...08177516123922

[AndyRAC]

I think that is how it should be; a team signs a crew, not just the driver. But the experience of Nicky was very much an outlier.

[MAnderson77]

Usually the driver pays his Co-Driver from his own salary. It's usually calculated in a way to cover the Co-Driver. Of course it's rarely 50-50, but I think we can agree that without a good pilot no driver would be able to achieve good results and time.

[AnttiL]

It would be interesting to know whether co-drivers are paid on monthly salary or by event/test. In the case of 2020 with few events, the first case meant drivers wasted money, in latter case co-drivers lost a big part of their income. Or maybe it's a combination of those two? It's again these things we likely never know...

[erikli2]

I heard from an "trusted source" that a certain Norwegian wrc driver & his Co-driver had a monthly salary of €10k in total. The driver got 6k and the Co-driver got 4k/month. This was around 2014.

[mknight]

There were some numbers flying around about Ogier, Tanak, Neuville etc in 2018.

Think it was from some 7 mil euro/year for Ogier down to some 2,5 for the cheapest of them. Most of that was said to be result bonuses and sponsor deals though.
120k/year looks quite tiny in comparison.

[240RS]

Reading Nicolas Gilsoul's story recently, I found it intriguing that when he and Thierry Neuville first signed for M-Sport they were paid a total sum of ZERO. Full program, yes, but not a single penny in wages!!! That all changed 12 months later following a highly successful year. Hyundai snapped them and the rest, as they say, is history. . .