Formula 1 Car Racing: Start Your Engines

Like any sport played anywhere on the planet, Formula One car racing is highly competitive, attracts large companies and brand names and is a magnet for advertising at stratospheric sums of money.

Big money sport
And then there are the drivers' salaries. Think you would be good at this based on your slick town driving? Apply for a job. Starting salaries are about $10 million a year. Top man so far was Michel Shumacher at $40 million. He is now retired and hopefully enjoying the experience and driving slowly. He is followed by Kimi Raikkonen who pulls in $30 million. The up and coming British driver, Lewis Hamilton is getting $20 million, but he's new on the job and his salary is bound to improve. Formula One cars are too big for you? Think about riding a motor bike. The world's top rider, the Italian Valentino Rossi, who looks about 15 years old, is making $40 million a year.

Fast money
These guys earn good money, true, but at speeds of 200 mph and 20,000 revs per minute there is little time to think about changing jobs for more pay. Their average heart-rate during a race is around 170 beats per minute, with a peak of 190, according to Toyota. What's doing it, the speed or the salary?

The betting
Now we come to the subject of betting. Do you want to bet on a particular race, a particular driver, a car, the weather or something else in connection with the upcoming race? Any bet you can think of is possible.

Visit our Sport Lines Service, and find a list of sports betting sites and reviews of them too. At the sites, click on motor sports and you will have it all in front of you. Current odds for the 2008 world champion range from Raikkonen at 7:5, Hamilton at 15:8, all the way down to the ‘Sunday' drivers at 1000:1.

Who's betting?
Why, everyone with the slightest interest in the sport. Reportedly Formula 1 generates more revenue per event than any other sport in the world. Each of the motor sport's 17 races produces average revenue of $229 million per event, nearly ten times that of its closest competitor, the National Football League, which generates $24 million per game. These figures exclude gambling revenue. Imagine what those are!