http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/79323

Today, news broke that Stanton 'The Stunt' Barrett still doesn't give up his hopeless IndyCar dream. Add to that the fact that Milka Duno is still allowed to go to Mid-Ohio, as well as Teixeira was driving the whole GP2 season, and I hope you'll see my point. Which drivers would you like a quiet word with, and tell them to remove themselves in favour of better drivers immediately?

Anyone that has to pay to play.

F1 - Nakajima and Buemi
GP2 (2009) - Teixeira, Panciatici and Clos
Indy - Barrett and Duno. Can I dislike the "media stars" of AGR, Danica and Marco?
F2 - Gandolfi

Congratulations, you just wiped out F3, GP2, F2 and all other junior racing series.

In F1, I wouldn't mind disappearing (so Yossarian!): Buemi, Heikki, Giancarlo, Sutil, Glock, Jamie Algaesorry and Nakajima.

And the young Fernando Alonso and Mark Webber who were pay drivers at Minardi

I thought Webber was Paul Stoddart's pet project?

I follow only F1 and I don't want any of the F1 drivers to disappear. There are no pure pay drivers today, everybody has talent and work hard.

GC

There is a clear difference between bringing sponsorship money with you and buying a race seat.

I'm surprised that Fisichella and Trulli have managed to hang on for so long.

I agree. A good example of how bad is a driver that affords a spot is seven times world champion Michael Schumacher, who paid US$ 300,000 for driving a Jordan in Spa 1991.

It is? Please explain.

Lewis Hamilton, but only when he loses his mind.

Well, they're having fun aren't they? Most of us if we had the chance we'd be there doing the same.

Uh, no he was not.

Without Glock and Sutil there would be even less action in races. Sutil made some mistakes in the last races, but also had some excellent drives. Glock is a real racer, which I personally enjoy watching. Apart from that, I think they are both talented. I'm also interested in the future development of Buemi. However, I definitely agree with Nakajima as he did not improve over the past year. It is quite clear that he is not top F1 material.

Driver sponsorship covers the whole F1 driver comparative ability. F1 teams that focus on just the one driver, tend to build up that driver's fame and the sponsors follow. One could also argue, that the sponsors build up the driver's number one status. For instance, I reckon Piquet Jnr was not as bad as he looked, if everything else had of been even.

Unfortunately that is F1 - and as been said, much of the junior ranks. It could be solved in F1 if the drivers drove a different car every race. But such an idea is a threat to F1, because it threatens the sponsorships and marketability of F1. Hence sponsorship and the clouding of driver ability, is part of F1.

Sometimes though, the good guys get through. And without devoted parents, I doubt they ever would have either. The same applies to many other sports as well - coaching costs money and chasing excellence cost parental time. One might think that junior motor sport is much more expensive than tennis, but in fact tennis coaching is expensive. And the time it takes is expensive. Whereas with a kart, you can buy one, do it up, and then sell it for a profit. But that doesn't lst all that long! At the top levels, in for instance tennis, sponsors don't help you at all, but in some other sports they just might. In golf, if you've won a major, you get entry to that major for many years. And the venues benefit from having a champion turn up and compete. It's a shame sponsors are mandatory in motorsport, but then at the higher levels its an expensive activity. And really in F1 at least IMO, its moved well away from pure sport and well into entertainment.

No they weren't. F1 hasn't had a pay driver for quite a while. For example, Nissany paid a mill per test to be friday driver. He was a pay driver because he was shit and had to pay to drive an F1 car.

These days, F1 teams are all well funded. If you look back 20 years, it was a different scenario.

This is one of the prime things that makes Max's idea of "**** off manufacturers, we just want poor teams" more stupid. The new poor teams will hire pay drivers, in the true sense of the word, (they will pay to drive, and not be paid by the team).

Manufacturers may well employ people to appeal to their market, but they are paid, and are generally the best available to appeal to the market.

For example, Nakajima is within a few tenths of Rosberg. A real pay driver would be 5+ seconds off the pace of his teammate if he is not a pay driver.

Every WDC is a pay driver under certain criteria. When a driver is bloody good, sponsors want to associate themselves with them. Therefore, Lewis, Fernando, Kimi, Michael, (who incidentally was never paid a cent by Ferrari, but instead paid by Marlboro), are all "pay drivers".

There is a big difference between being paid by a sponsor because the driver is bloody good, and a driver paying to drive an F1 car.

Next year will have LOTS of real pay drivers, thanks to Max.

WRONG.

Mark had a pitifully small personal sponsorship from Fosters and Yellow Pages, certainly not enough to get him a drive in the team. Stoddart bit the bullet and plumped for a fellow Aussie.

The discussion about "pay drivers" is a bit silly because instead of saying "pay drivers should not exist" you might as well say "poor teams should not exist". It is a business, you have a budget. You have a poor team. Someone is offering you sponsorship if driver X is hired, you accept and put the money into the budget. You are rich, you want Driver Y. You have a big sponsor and discuss Driver Y with them. They say "ok, that is good for our business as well", and put some money in.

A very good driver attracts big sponsors, a not so good attracts smaller sponsors. A very bad driver attracts no sponsors at all and have to be very rich to pay for a seat from his own pockets. I think it is a very long time ago since anyone from that category drove a F1 race.

That is how it works in lower series. The basic idea being that if the driver is good, he will make it to F1 and make lots of money. I believe the figure for driving a GP2 car is between 500,00 to 1 million euros. Every driver in F3, GP2 etc, are expected to give money to the team, rather than the other way around.

F1 is the pinnacle of motorsport. It is true that the best drivers attract the best sponsors, but they are PAID hansomely by their teams. The likes of Toyota, McLaren, Renault, etc pay their drivers. In the lower series, it is the other way around.

In a series which is the pinnacle of motorsport, the drivers are (currently) chosen because they are the best drivers. They have proven this in lower series where they needed to pay.

In the bad old days when pre qualifying was part and parcel of F1, teams turned up unable to pay for their entry, so got drivers to pay for their drive.

As a result, lots of shit drivers got to F1.

When teams PAY drivers in F1, better drivers are in F1.

If you can't afford to pay your drivers F1 salaries, you shouldn't be in F1.

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Buemi, Sutil and Heikki, I don't think they are poor, they showed in some times, a pretty good pace.

Buemi, is the best rookie in the last 2 years.
Sutil, has some really good moment, shame, that most of them was ruined by Raikkonen He was far better than albers or yamamoto.
Heikki, he was better than Fisichella in Renault.

I'm pretty sure they were not pay drivers.

Albers, Verstappen, Doornbos etc brought some small amounts of sponroship though in following season I think.

Hehe, you mean that F1 drivers are the only ones earning money?
Paid by the team? Is that the definition of a non-pay driver? I don't think Ferrari payed a dollar for Schumi, Marlboro did. Santander are rumored to sponsor Ferrari with around €200 millions for four years. Do you think Alonso being there has anything to do with it? Sure, for some years there has been no team in F1 in desperate need of money, they all could afford good drivers. But that is the only difference against the "bad old days" (days that many call "the good old days"), they can all afford to pick from the top layer of drivers.

......which is why Webber was only originally given a 4 race deal in 2002.
Hopefully Mark repays some other up and commer in the same way in GP3.

I believe getting some young Aussie drivers a seat is precisely Mark's motivation with this GP3 venture. Kudos to him.
Kind of like a modern-day Brabham

Well, Sutil only impresses in one or two races a season, which usually also end in him DNFing the race for whatever reason. His performance next to Fisichella has been mediocre, a young charger could reasonably be expected to beat Fisichella (if only by a small amount) and Sutil never did that. I would say Fisi was the better driver when those two were team mates at Force India.

Glock hasn't done anything special next to Jarno Trulli either. He's another one of those journeyman who'll cruise around for a few years and then fade into history.

Algaesory.......sometimes I wonder if he knows up from down. He seems so confused and disoriented, how did he end up in F1?

Naka needs no explanation for being thrown out.

Heikki likewise. He is a second or third tier driver, depending on the day. No team will hire him with the intention of leading a championship challenge, and there's no point in having a driver in your team who can't be relied to win championships for you. You might as well give a try to new talent from GP2.

Romain is borderline therefore I didn't mention him. He certainly has the raw talent (like Buemi) but it is time he quits having 'incidents' and matching his team mate in pace.

You buy a seat with sponsors that pay the bills. Bringing sponsorship to finance a seat is what a paydriver does.
And there's nothing wrong with that, it has always been part of F1 and many great drivers started as paydriver and the lesser paydrivers like Taki Inoue (who was one of the worst imo) helped their team survive.