Mercedes open to plan to revise F1 payment structure

At the moment Ferrari receives an extra payment based on its position as the sport's oldest team, while Red Bull, Mercedes, McLaren and Williams all receive annual bonus payments on top of what they earn for their finishing positions in the constructors' championship.

Ecclestone wants to have a greater emphasis on performance, which would give other teams a chance to get a bigger slice of the pie if they perform.

On Thursday Wolff met with Ecclestone to hear what he has in mind.

"We had a long discussion on various topics, and one was how to redistribute the prize fund going forward," said Wolff.

"I think it's in everybody's interests to have stability long term, and we discussed the various models.

"I think we can build it on various pillars. We can build it on a base payment, which is important to know what you have, on a performance based payment, and on historical performance.

"So I would say three elements are the right way going forward."

Wolff said the key is that the sport's overall income is continuing to increase.

"The income is growing. Bernie's business is profitable, and is going up every year. And the income we're able to generate out of TV, sponsorship and sanction fees is growing every year. I remember when I was in Williams in 2009 a fifth place team would get $35-40m.

"Today a fifth place team would probably generate 30-40 percent more. This is because the prize find is growing. Bernie is growing the business very profitably. And that continues, because the contracts are all long-term contracts.

"They've just signed a new TV deal, they are signing racetracks in multi-year deals, and therefore it's pretty visible that the business, from the current pillars, is solid."

Wolff pointed out that while Mercedes receives a significant bonus payment, it was in fact based on performance.

Ecclestone agreed to a bigger payment if the team could win two titles, and against his expectations, that's exactly what happened.

"Maybe the model Mercedes got from Bernie in 2012 is a base for hoe it could be in the future. We got additional prize fund because we performed. [Bernie] thought we would never win two seasons in a row."

Wolff believes that various factors should be taken into consideration.

"You need to look at it and say what relevance does the historic performance have, and the relevance of the brand, what relevance do you give to historic non-success. And they you probably weigh them up.

"You need to take all those variables, and put them together, and say what multiple do you apply to that one – historic value for example, historic performance, current performance."

Ferrari bonus

Although the suggestion is that performance becomes more important Wolff agreed that Ferrari should retain its special position.

"I think it's very clear that Ferrari is the most iconic team in F1. They will have no problem to argue that they had historic performance, and that they have tremendous value for the sport. So I don't see any issue there."

Wolff said he was not worried about the Mercedes board not being impressed if future income actually dropped.

"The board is pretty relaxed because if they would lose it means that I would lose or we would lose it as well, so we would be fighting [for it]. It's not about losing – in F1 the prize find is growing, so we're talking about upside, and how the upside can be distributed in a way that is more fair and equitable."

Wolff denied any suggestion that Mercedes might be among the first to agree to a deal in order to curry favour with Ecclestone.

"That's not going to happen. Times are different. the world is more transparent, and we are all stakeholders of the sport. I think 'whoever comes fast screws the others' is not going to happen with the current set-up of teams."