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No prize money outside top ten

ESPN Staff
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Marussia was 11th in the constructors' championship last year but Caterham sits bottom of the standings at present © Sutton Images
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Bernie Ecclestone has revealed only the top ten in the constructors' championship will received prize money from this year onwards.

When the FIA invited applications for the grid ahead of the 2010 season, an agreement was reached with Ecclestone and inserted in to the Concorde Agreement that each team outside the top ten would receive $10million (£6.44m) in prize money. The move was designed to help the new teams entering the sport, with 12 on the grid in total at the time.

However, with the Concorde Agreement having expired and HRT folded, Ecclestone has signed individual commercial agreements with each of last year's top ten teams but not 11th-placed Marussia. Ecclestone revealed in The Daily Telegraph that part of the new agreements stated that the top ten teams are paid prize money but that the team finishing in 11th place would no longer receive any funds.

"[Marussia] don't have a commercial agreement because they are not in the top ten," Ecclestone said. "We pay the top ten, that's what we do. For three years we did something different because we had an agreement with [Former FIA president] Max [Mosley] but from now on we will pay the top ten and that is it."

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