Economic Analysis and Policy 59 (2018) 54–68 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Economic Analysis and Policy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/eap Full length article Surviving in the shadows—An economic and empirical discussion about the survival of the non-winning F1 drivers Paulo Reis Mourao Department of Economics & NIPE, Economics & Management School, University of Minho, 4700 Braga, Portugal article info Article history: Received 21 December 2017 Received in revised form 31 March 2018 Accepted 1 April 2018 Available online 6 April 2018 JEL classification: C25 D43 L51 Keywords: Survival models Formula one Motorsports abstract F1 drivers are the (most) visible faces of a F1 team’s performance. Good performances ensure a lengthier contract between drivers and teams. Reversely, humble performances may jeopardize the renewal of drivers’ contracts to their teams. This paper will study the capacity of F1 drivers surviving professionally in competition. Considering two major samples of drivers (without points or without victories) and two types of ‘exits’ (exiting the team or exiting the F1 competition), various regressions of Cox survival models and of parametric regressions have been obtained. The main results suggest that recent worse standings results, higher ages and a higher number of withdrawals contribute to the shortening of F1 careers. It has also been observed that the early decades of competition were not known for providing a higher number of races for drivers. Reversely, adding podium positions (even without winning) ensures a longer professional life in F1. © 2018 Economic Society of Australia, Queensland. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The professional longevity of certain contractual relations is a topic which has been catching the attention of scholars for the last decades. There has been a considerable amount of literature regarding the various reasons for the differences in contractual lengths: from heterogeneity, depending on the differences in the economic sectors, to the models based on the signaling of competence marks (Mincer, 1958; Houseman et al., 2003; Fang and MacPhail, 2008). Since the seminal works from authors like Mincer (1958) or Goldin (1980), the contractual relation between an employer and an employee is analyzed as the product of a set of (sequential) bargaining contacts between these two parts in which the measurable outputs (mostly salaries and contractual lengths) depend on three sets of dimensions: the individual characteristics of the employee (age, education level, professional experience, capacity of attracting funding, etc.), the environmental characteristics of the hiring entity (productivity levels, market power, internal plans of development, etc.) and the institutional patterns (legislation regulating the contractual terms, interference of informal practices, etc.). Within this literature, a more defined area, focused on the contractual relations of sportsmen/sportswomen has started to be more focused on certain topics (Rosen, 1981). The contractual relations of professional sportsmen/sportswomen also tend to be characterized by these triangular discussions: specific outputs (in general, short contractual lengths and considerably high wages), positive impacts from individual characteristics like a track of relative success (Elson and Ferrere, 2013; Cyrenne, 2014) or a track of victories (Hausman and Leonard, 1994), pressures from the history of success of the hiring teams and an influence of the regulations of each country and of each period (Coates et al., 2016). Formula One is an expensive sport. Therefore, drivers’ exhibitions are particularly responsible for the teams’ higher revenues through more sponsorships and prize money. On the contrary, a high number of driver withdrawals, ‘‘Did not E-mail address: paulom@eeg.uminho.pt. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eap.2018.04.001 0313-5926/© 2018 Economic Society of Australia, Queensland. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.