Bernie Ecclestone is considering a plan to scrap Formula 1's current prize money agreement, which guarantees top teams a far greater slice of the sport's revenues, simply for turning up and competing.
The way in which prize money is distributed has been a sore point for many years, with Force India and Sauber making an official complaint to the European Union's Competition Commissioner last year, claiming the system to be "unfair" and "anti-competition".
At present, Ferrari is awarded a historical bonus of around $100 million (£75m) for simply taking part, whilst other teams such as Mercedes, Red Bull, Williams, McLaren and Renault, also receive bonuses based on their past and present success.
The remainder of the money is then split between the teams, based on finishing position, with the last placed team banking very little.
Ecclestone believes it might now be time to act, though any such change wouldn't likely happen until after 2020 when the current contracts expire, unless he can convince all the teams to agree unanimously.
"I told Toto [Wolff] not to think about banking any money yet," he told The Times.
"I am going to have a good look at how things work to see if I can come up with something more equal for all the teams."
Ecclestone suggested following the in the steps of the English Football's Premier League might be a way forward.
"The Premier League has a good way of distributing the prize money, so maybe that could work for us," added Ecclestone.
"There will be people who will like it and people who won’t like it, and people who will suffer."
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