IndyCar reducing Leaders Circle payouts for 2023

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emailBy Marshall Pruett | February 2, 2023 8:00 AM ET

The NTT IndyCar Series is making an alteration to its Leaders Circle program. RACER has learned a change to the prize money-based payout system has been implemented where each contract for 2023 comes with a $150,000 reduction.

With each Leaders Circle contract valued at $1.06 million in 2022, the new contracts on offer are worth $910,000 in guaranteed prize money, a 14-percent year-to-year loss.

RACER understands the inspiration behind trimming the 22 Leaders Circle payments is to reallocate the funds to the series’ marketing and promotions budget. The move takes $3.3 million from IndyCar’s teams and represents a budget loss of $600,000 for the four-car Andretti Autosport team, $450,000 for three-car teams like Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, and $300,000 for two-car outfits like Dale Coyne Racing.

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Within annual IndyCar budgets that range from approximately $6-8 million per entry, the $1.06 million given for entries that qualify for Leaders Circle contracts has been a significant sum to rely upon when searching for sponsors or paying drivers to complete the rest of the budget. Although the $150,000 cut in Leaders Circle payouts is a small amount in comparison to the $6-8 million required to run each car, the late timing of the change will require some teams to either renegotiate their existing deals or begin searches for an additional $150,000 to fill the financial void.

Devised in the 2000s after smaller teams complained about the majority of per-race prize money being earned by the same big teams that filled the podiums, IndyCar slashed its prize money payouts — barring the Indianapolis 500 — at each round and pooled the majority of its annual prize money fund into a single sum that was divided equally at approximately $1 million per contract and paid to its full-time entrants.

Modifications have been made to the Leaders Circle system over the years, with a decrease to 22 contracts made available, no matter how many full-time entries are on the grid. Limited to the top 22 in each season’s Entrants’ points contest, further restriction have been implemented where only the top three entries in a team’s stable are eligible for contracts; one exception was made with Andretti Autosport, which had its fourth entry grandfathered into Leaders Circle eligibility. For a four-car team like Chip Ganassi Racing, its lowest-placing entry — even if it makes it inside the top 22 cut — is ineligible for a contract.

In light of the fourth-car ineligibility, the three-car Leaders Circle restriction has been cited by some team owners as a reason for holding firm at three entries.

Asked to confirm the 14-percent Leaders Circle contract reduction and the use of those dollars to increase IndyCar’s marketing and promotions budget, a series representative declined to comment.

 

Was the Daytona 24 too successful that IMMEDIATELY someone has their

hand in the racers pocket?

How about we give that money to the fund for animals and other liberal causes?

What liberals always do?
Take it away from a successful program and give it away to some failures who will screw things up.
Everything that liberals touch turns to manure.

 

With a chinese spy balloon floating over Montana one day after the Daytona 24, Feb 1 2023,

should we take our cash out of the banks and head to a well known South American

dictatorship where people have no money at all and therefore a "stable currency" and a "stable economy" ?
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And tonight Joe Biden is serving Lobster and Steak in the White House to visiting dignataries

after ordering a well known food supply warehouse not to stock lobster any more..

....for the good of the planet and the children of course.

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As the poor folks deplorables eat Bill Gates processed horse manure since beef is bad for you.

(keeping steak prices down) and the new meatless Bill Gates BS is composed of ground up roaches

and labelled "meatless"...but tastes "just like beef" after they dumped cholesterol saturated steak grease

all over it for "flavor". lol