‘It was in the millions’ – Otmar Szafnauer shares incredible Force India employee salary secret
Alpine's Otmar Szafnauer smiles on the grid during the Bahrain Grand Prix. Bahrain, March 2022.
Formula 1 fans following the sport since the late 2000s will easily remember Force India, the Vijay Mallya-run outfit formed from the remains of Spyker F1. Despite finishing as high as fourth in the World Constructors’ Championship, though, the team always seemed to operate on the brink of dissolution.
Now, in a recent interview with Otmar Szafnauer on the High Performance podcast, the true extent of the team’s financial troubles has been revealed — to the point where Szafnauer himself had to step in to pay the salaries of team personnel.
Otmar Szafnauer: “I knew the salaries were not going to get paid”
Otmar Szafnauer was a recent guest on the High Performance podcast, a show dedicated to interviewing fascinating guests in order to share life lessons with audiences. The former boss of Alpine had plenty to share about his time working with the French brand — but one of the most fascinating elements of the episode takes a look back at the Force India days.
The American joined Force India back in 2009, going on to serve a long tenure as Chief Operating Officer at a company that seemed to regularly struggle with funding.
The hosts of High Performance didn’t shy away from asking about an ‘urban myth’ that, while working at Force India, Szafnauer paid the salaries of the entire team.
Szafnauer responded, “Twice.”
When pressed on just how much that cost him, Szafnauer initially tried to downplay things by saying, “It wasn’t that much.”
Eventually, he admitted that “it was in the millions.”
“I paid it with the help of my partner at Soft Pauer,” Szafnauer said, referring to a company that designs interactive websites and apps for interested clients.
“We had money in the business. I had my own money. And I knew the salaries were not going to get paid, and I knew how difficult that is for people.
“Some people live paycheck to paycheck, and I understand it.
“We had to pay the salaries, and the Formula 1 money was coming in five days’ time. So say the salaries are due on a Friday, and we’re getting the Formula 1 money the following Wednesday.
“So I could have waited, not paid on Friday, or paid with my own money and then waited until Wednesday to get that money back from when the Formula 1 money came.”
But rather than wait, Szafnauer admitted that he took the “risk” to pay the teams.
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“In between that Friday and the Wednesday, there’s a huge risk of, well, what if that money doesn’t come?” Szafnauer mused. “Or what if that money does come, and somebody else knocks on the door and says, ‘Hey, you owe me $2 million, and unless you give me this money, I’m shutting you down.’
“So that was five, six, seven days of, ‘What if?'”
But that didn’t stop the American from paying the bills. In his eyes, the risk was important because “I knew that the team did well because of the team spirit, the camaraderie we had — the looking after each other.
“There was only 400 of us, or 408, or whatever it was at the end. And at the time, we’re competing with teams that had no budget cap, right? That had 13 [to] 14,000 people.
“We had 400 and a £90 million budget. The others had a £250 million budget.”
That massive fiscal disparity fostered genuine connection amongst the employees at Force India — in large part because Szafnauer knew that a happy team would be better able to extract the most performance from the least amount of funds.
He also offered a glimpse into what the F1 world looked like prior to the introduction of the cost cap.
Referring to the differences in budget, he said, “You can say, oh, that’s three times the budget. It’s not that. It’s 100 times the budget, because some of that budget has to go toward buying your engines, flying to races, buying your tires, making the race car.
“At the end, out of the 90 million, we have have had four [million] leftover for development — whereas the others probably had 60 or 70 [million] for development.
“It’s the four compared to the 60 or 70, that’s the true comparison, because the rest you have to spend, and you’re not spending it on going faster. You’re spending on going to the races and feeding your mechanics.”
And twice, when the money didn’t come to feed those mechanics, Szafnauer stepped up to the plate.
The hosts of the High Performance podcast had one last point they wanted to understand. Did Szafnauer tell anyone that he’d paid the team salaries?
“A few knew,” he admitted. “The finance department knew, Andy Green. There’s a few that knew, but no, I didn’t tell them.”
Why not?
As he explained, “I didn’t feel it necessary. What I felt was it was necessary for everyone to get paid on time.”