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/?ref=watch_permalink&v=2608177516123922

[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. . .

[AnttiL]

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.

But it's a complicated matter, sometimes you have bonuses from good results or per rally, or you can have sponsor income. Sometimes you have to earn your salary by working elsewhere outside rallying.

[mknight]

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. . .

Yeah, but that's MSports business model, often also getting a share of future income of that driver.

It worked well as long as young drivers with some money went to them. Didn't work that well the last two years when those drivers (Loubet, Veiby, Solberg, Solans) instead went to others.

Surely they are hoping to get back to that business with Puma.

[Helopant]

Some teams might pay their drivers a lump sum per year or month and leave it up to the drivers to negotiate payment with their co-drivers. Other teams might negotiate salaries directly with the co-drivers and pay them separately from the driver's salary. It all just depends on the team and their way of doing things.
Just like how different companies have different ways of creating paystubs, it's the same with co-driver salaries. If you're in a situation where you need to create a paystub for your co-driver, you can always use a paystub maker (https://www.paystubcreator.net/) to help you out! It's a quick and easy solution to keep track of the financial papers.

[J4MIE]

It’s all down to individual agreements and negotiation. There’s no set way of doing things. What might work for some might be unacceptable for others.