63 replies to this topic

[Tenmantaylor]

The topic of driver pay and F1 budgets has reached fever pitch this season. Be it Pastor the pay, Hulkenberg the talented or Kimi the poor, money and contract talk seems to be dominating driver market negotiations more than ever. The notion of money and sponsorship being more important than driver talent has long undermined the credibility of F1 being a 'sport' but recently it is getting more widely covered as a primary topic of discussion rather than behind the scenes piranha club talk that we never used to get to hear about. Arguably F1 was always like this and all that has changed is the invention of social media and increased coverage of the sport but that doesn't make it more palatable for F1 fans, quite the contrary.

 

In this post-credit crunch era even long established and historically successful teams are scrabbling around for driver money and investment to keep their operations running let alone be successful. It's now an accepted part of the aptly named silly season that "driver A is better but driver B is sitting on an oil field of sponsorship therefore will get the seat" or "we at least need driver C in one of the seats so we can afford the talent of driver D in the other to get us some extra WCC money".

 

Fans don't want to hear that. They want to hear about new drivers coming in with talent, bravery, speed and character. Not about Richie Rich who's dad runs 3 racing teams and is a shoe in for a seat. I am under no illusion that F1 is about what fans want, it's about how much money the teams can get to build a better car. After all, the car is more important than the driver, right? Another thing racing fans don't want to hear.

 

And all the while we are witnessing by far the most dominant driver/team combo since the Schumacher/Ferrari years in Vettel and Red Bull. In the face of this dominance the common perception is that the F1 field is weakening both in terms of spread of budget down the grid and talent in the cockpits.

 

Even the few teams left with past-pedigree and decent budgets are being left in the dust by Red Bull so what chance do the teams further down have to make an impact in F1? The money problems the lower teams are facing is compounded by the need to get money in from lesser talented pay drivers to merely go racing. Forget moving up the field, survival in the sport is the order of the day for 80% of the grid these days. And who pays the price? The viewers and the talented drivers who never got a chance. Now we see it's not just the back markers suffering from pay driver-itis, it's spreading it's way up the grid to McLaren and Lotus.

 

With this multitude of problems does something need to be enforced to ensure teams are able to choose drivers based primarily on ability and not their corporate backing? Can anything realistically and practically be done to solve this perceived problem of money over talent? The lower teams have more chance of doing the occasional bit of giant slaying if they were able to attract top talent rather being forced to give the seats to top dollar.

 

It seems now that only the richest teams (Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull) can afford to pick their driver line up. If F1 truly wants to be considered a sport and not furthering the image of a rich gentlemen's club something needs to be done. But what can be done and by who? Can the link between the sponsors and the drivers be severed and take the influence of money in driver selection out of the equation? But who can enforce this? The FIA? FOM? The teams? Or is it just fine as it is?

[DampMongoose]

 If F1 truly wants to be considered a sport and not furthering the image of a rich gentlemen's club something needs to be done. But what can be done and by who? Can the link between the sponsors and the drivers be severed and take the influence of money in driver selection out of the equation? But who can enforce this? The FIA? FOM? The teams? Or is it just fine as it is?

 

It certainly isn't fine if you're a fan of motorsport but unfortunately, given the answer to the bit in bold is "not in the slightest" the answer is a waste of breath.  All motorsport has inherently been the playground for the rich since the beginning, can't see it changing now.

Edited by DampMongoose, 04 November 2013 - 16:53.

[Farhannn15]

Even the top class series of karting can cost upwards of 50k a year. Follow that by Formula Ford/BMW then Formula 3/GP3 and then GP2/WSR and perhaps a couple of season in some of the series and you're looking at a pretty hefty sum at the end of it. I don't think Motorsport will ever be able to get rid of the rich gentleman's club because it actually is only for the extremely wealthy people

[Risil]

Make Formula One less attractive for wealthy people. Paddock Club signing an exclusive beverages agreement with Bovril would be a good start.

[Jon83]

Drivers needing to bring money for a seat isn't a new thing. I don't see how you can have a situation or enforce a rule where it is ensured that the best get the seat regardless of whether they bring money or how much they bring. In an ideal world only the very best would be on the grid but it just isn't going to happen.

 

For some of the teams at the back, like the bottom two, it wouldn't matter who you put in the car, the results would still be the same.

[billm99uk]

Actually, in historical terms, there have been plenty of far worse eras for pay drivers in the past. Chilton is probably the only one I would deem a pay driver (in the sense that he would never be there without his $$$$) and even he has won a couple of times in GP2. All of the others are a matter of argument. When a GP2 champion (Maldonado)  is a "pay driver" in most fans eyes well, really, you should have been around a couple of generations ago, when back half of the grid could be made up of entirely of rich 'gentlemen' with absolutely no discernable talent but who could afford to pay for the drives.

[Andrew Hope]

I think there are a lot of things to take into consideration.

 

Firstly, pay drivers are not new: the internet is new. The Prince of Thailand raced in the first ever Formula One Grand Prix, so let's not pretend Pastor Maldonado invented the idea of buying a seat. It's interesting how fans of a sport who compulsively compare every driver of today to Senna, Prost, Clark and Fangio continue to act like pay drivers are something new to the sport. And "buying a seat" is a pretty disingenuous term, because being given a race seat in return for a sponsorship package is a little more complicated than a lot of fans want to admit. And it is the lesser of two evils: what would you prefer, a team take a pay driver to continue to survive for a couple seasons while they sort out their money problems,  or a team take two drivers bringing no money, and risk folding as a team altogether? This isn't analogous to refusing to take a loan from your parents once you move out on your own: there are hundreds of people who will lose their job if an F1 team collapses, and if taking Max Chilton for a few years instead of Luiz Razia is necessary to keep the team going, that seems like a fair trade to me.

 

There are a couple more arrogant attitudes from a lot of fans as well. Some seem to be under the impression that if you bring any money at all, you aren't talented. I guess it was Maldonado's lack of talent that kept Alonso behind him for 60 laps at the Spanish Grand Prix? It was Perez' backing from the world's richest man that made that Malaysia race as close as it was? The two aren't mutually exclusive. You can be rich and good, and you can be poor and suck. I don't see anyone on the F1 grid, including Max Chilton, who is rich and sucks. Chilton seems to have had the measure of Bianchi lately and I for one won't lose my **** if he's on the grid next year. If you're 9/10ths as good as someone there on merit and you bring a ton of money, that's no reason to blame a team for taking that option. Talent is always a prerequisite for all F1 seats, no matter how many iRacing and rFactor veterans feel they could beat Narain Karthikeyan. Money is just a prerequisite for most of them.

 

Fans having favorite drivers is a massive pain in the ass around discussions like this. It's understandable, you want to see your guy do good, but if you start to hear words like "deserves" and "owed" coming out of your mouth, you've crossed the bullshit line. F1 is not grade 6 math class where you deserved an A because you studied hard. F1 is a sporting competition and you are what the standings say you are. It's harsh, but you can't break from that for anything. If you say Fisichella deserved the win at Spa in 2009, where does it stop? Badoer deserved 6th at the Nurburgring 10 years earlier? Perez deserved the win at Malaysia? See where I'm going? Deserve is a meaningless word in a sporting context. What happens is exactly what was meant to happen. You can't arbitrarily act like one driver is owed something more than another because of some vague, karmic idea of working hard = more results. Or that having money disqualifies you from having talent. You need to have ******** amounts of money to get anywhere near F1 in the first place, it's not an option between football and karting for working class parents. This silly mental image so many fans attempt to draw up that there's dozens of poor Sennas standing on the sidelines watching the rich sons of billionaires driving around in F1 is not very accurate at all: you need more money than you or I are ever likely to see to be able to stand on the sidelines at all. I feel sorry for a driver who saw his money get him from karting to those sidelines and ran out a few feet short of the F1 paddock, but let's not pretend he was a beggar child on the way there. Everyone has advantages over each other. Max Chilton has more money than Nico Hulkenberg, and Nico Hulkenberg is a lot better looking than I am. Jealousy would be a **** reason to hate Hulkenberg, the same as envy is a weak reason to hate Chilton.

 

As for what can be done, who knows. Car racing is a rich man's sport, and I didn't have a problem with that yesterday so I don't have one now. The hypocrisy is a little distasteful as well, because I'd bet both my balls and most of my cock that there are not a lot of people on this forum who decry pay/sponsored drivers that would turn down an F1 race seat in their position. If Force India called me tomorrow and said "Andrew, we want you in a race seat for our team next year if you can provide $15,000,000 from your family's maple syrup empire", I'm not going to say "Sorry, I think Charles Pic is about as good as me, so you should pick him". No, I'm going to say YES YES YES I CAN DIE A HAPPY MAN and then ring up Pic and say "Sorry Chuck, I love you but I only get to live once and I'd like to spend as much of that life in an F1 car as possible". That might be a fun social experiment for a Carlos Slim or a Bill Gates: give 5 people on this forum $20mil in backing and prime them for a race seat, and see how many do a few practice laps at Jerez and say "Gee this was fun, but I think Bruno Senna deserves this more than me". It might be fun, to see how noble and righteous we all are with our pay driver hate and poor driver love when we're the ones with money and on the verge of a decade racing in Formula 1, one of the greatest things any human being could ever experience.

[Fastcake]

Well, if you want a more equitable situation, the only way of doing that is redistributing the money earned by F1 across the entire lower formula. There will be far less of a struggle for drivers trying to step up from F3, for example, if they received a fair amount of prize money that can be put towards a World Series drive. If the FIA was using the money to reward talented drivers for winning a lower championship, rather than watching it being wasted on CVC and the top teams, we'd be in a better situation.

[sopa]

If you want to get rid of paydrivers, you need to get big corporations into F1, who have a global aim, who want and can spend a lot to win and succeed.

 

I remember people hated car manufacturers, because allegedly they "took the soul out of the sport", also people complain about Red Bull and that they are not "a real racing team". But in the end the influx of car manufacturers and other big companies (like Red Bull) are the solution.to paydriver-problem. Those companies are so rich they can hire anyone on talent, they can also support more talented drivers through feeder series.

 

So F1 fans have to make a choice of what they want. It is not an ideal world. "Soulless" big companies or paydrivers. 

 

However, the big question is how to make F1 interesting for them again, because due to economy problems they don't want to waste hundreds of millions of $$$ on participating in F1. We either need a strict budget cap or just make the process of designing/building an F1 car and participating in the series much cheaper. And even if we do this, the series still has to offer significant marketable value for big companies to enter.

[Collective]

If you want to get rid of paydrivers, you need to get big corporations into F1, who have a global aim, who want and can spend a lot to win and succeed.

 

I remember people hated car manufacturers, because allegedly they "took the soul out of the sport", also people complain about Red Bull and that they are not "a real racing team". But in the end the influx of car manufacturers and other big companies (like Red Bull) are the solution.to paydriver-problem. Those companies are so rich they can hire anyone on talent, they can also support more talented drivers through feeder series.

 

The problem with manufacturers is that come the next financial crisis, their F1 programs will be first thinkg in line for the chopping block. Just remember we lost Toyota, Honda and BMW in a two year span.

Edited by Collective, 04 November 2013 - 18:32.

[sopa]

The problem with manufacturers is that come the next financial crisis, their F1 programs will be first thinkg in line for the chopping block. Just remember we lost Toyota, Honda and BMW in a two year span.

 

Well, nothing in life is stable. Like economy has its lows, so have the car manufacturers and they don't perform forever. However, this doesn't mean we can't appreciate the era, when manufacturers participated. In my view 2000s were sort of golden era in driver quality and professionalism. Of course it doesn't last forever, still doesn't change the fact it WAS a good time. Like you can think about your personal life - you had some good times, even if you don't have now. But people think that if manufacturers join they should participate forever even regardless of what their core businesses and world economy do, and can't even thank them for the good times they have given for us.

Edited by sopa, 04 November 2013 - 18:37.

[Tenmantaylor]

...it actually is only for the extremely wealthy people

 

There is a slight difference in personally being able to afford 50k to go karting and a driver bringing a sponsorship of 50m to an F1 team for a drive. Ambitious, hard working people that aren't particularly wealthy such as Lewis' dad can make things happen at the lower end. Super talented drivers that can't bring the sponsorship to make it to the next level and climb the ladder is the problem. And the people who attract those super high level sponsorships are usually through nepotism and the circles they move in making it even more removed from how much money that driver or family has. It starts to become elitism like in politics.

 

 

Drivers needing to bring money...

I don't see how....

...it just isn't going to happen.

...the results would still be the same.

 

 

Jon, I started this thread to discuss the possibilities, not say "it won't happen". An idea doesn't cost anything. And your statement about the bottom team's driver's not making any difference go and watch Alonso in the Minardi in 2002, Senna in a Toleman at Monaco or Vettel in the Toro Rosso at Monza. You couldn't be any further from the truth.

 

...there have been plenty of far worse eras for pay drivers in the past.

Chilton... has won a couple of times in GP2. 

 

Go look at Chilton's record outside of Daddy's teams.... Only because it was worse in the past doesn't mean we should be grateful. My ancestors used to **** in the dark...

 

I think there are a lot of things to take into consideration...

 

...one of the greatest things any human being could ever experience.

 

Great post, Andrew, some excellently countered points. You are right about talent and wealth not being mutually exclusive. I will pick you up on your historical justification though, just because that's how it was doesn't mean it's how it has to be. And you would probably give your whole cock as would I 

 

redistributing the money earned by F1 across the entire lower formula. 

 

Good idea although not much money is being "earned" in F1 is it? Teams like Lotus are waiting for next years income to pay this year's bills.

[RealRacing]

I have had discussions of whether F1 is mostly about the driver or the teams. There are many who think it is about the teams. In that case, which driver is in the seat should not matter as much as how much money the team is able to collect, in theory, to build a better car. After all, if you follow that line of thought, it is mostly the car that makes the difference. So, if someone thinks F1 is a team competition mostly, they should not complain but rather encourage so-called pay-drivers. 

 

If you think F1 is mostly about the driver though, here are some ideas:

 

-Enforce lower budgets

-Give more monetary weight to the WDC than the WCC

-Encourage more big companies to sponsor teams so that they can pay for talent

-Make the sport more about the driver: bring back close racing (less aero, better tyres, no DRS, all that nice stuff), eliminate TOs again.

-Increase driver qualifications for super license.

[JSDSKI]

Racers have been buying rides since the chariot races in the Coliseum.  And some of the wealthiest in the sport have been the best one time or another. 

 

I'm much more concerned about equity in America's Cup.

Edited by JSDSKI, 04 November 2013 - 19:03.

[sopa]

As for what can be done, who knows. Car racing is a rich man's sport, and I didn't have a problem with that yesterday so I don't have one now. The hypocrisy is a little distasteful as well, because I'd bet both my balls and most of my cock that there are not a lot of people on this forum who decry pay/sponsored drivers that would turn down an F1 race seat in their position. If Force India called me tomorrow and said "Andrew, we want you in a race seat for our team next year if you can provide $15,000,000 from your family's maple syrup empire", I'm not going to say "Sorry, I think Charles Pic is about as good as me, so you should pick him". No, I'm going to say YES YES YES I CAN DIE A HAPPY MAN and then ring up Pic and say "Sorry Chuck, I love you but I only get to live once and I'd like to spend as much of that life in an F1 car as possible". That might be a fun social experiment for a Carlos Slim or a Bill Gates: give 5 people on this forum $20mil in backing and prime them for a race seat, and see how many do a few practice laps at Jerez and say "Gee this was fun, but I think Bruno Senna deserves this more than me". It might be fun, to see how noble and righteous we all are with our pay driver hate and poor driver love when we're the ones with money and on the verge of a decade racing in Formula 1, one of the greatest things any human being could ever experience.

 

Good thoughts. The only problem is that most of us would collapse under the G-forces in the car and I for one certainly wouldn't enjoy this excessive physical pain for more than one odd experience. Maybe your idea can work in something a simple man can be at least remotely capable of doing.

[JSDSKI]

However, to be serious for a minute... isn't this a basic theme in life?  It's the imagined versus the real advantage.  Real, amazing talent will find a way with a bit of luck.  Andretti is a prime example - found enough money with his brother to start dirt ovals in a $500 Hudson out of a junkyard.  That's all he needed in the beginning.  Compare that to his children and grandchildren - both generations had head starts compared to Mario.  Not the same records, tho.  Would anyone here deny Senna's place in F1 - given his family's wealth?  Or Pedro Rodriquez in Prototypes?  Or Lauda's? 

 

We can legislate equality in law and regulate it in competition - but not "fairness".  We can't change DNA or Determination.  

Well, we don't change the DNA yet, anyway.  Will we have this discussion when we get our first genetically modified driver?  "He's got 20 / 11 vision!!"  "It's not FAIR!!"

[Fastcake]

Good idea although not much money is being "earned" in F1 is it? Teams like Lotus are waiting for next years income to pay this year's bills.

 

I'm talking about the money FOM earns. Some teams have cash flow problems yes, but that's not down to a lack of money earned by the sport as a whole.

 

I am aware however that even the billion plus that FOM makes each year won't make a massive difference, once the teams are paid and the FIA takes a cut for it's existing programmes (I am assuming the rights have been acquired back in this scenario). But if you combine it with imposed cost controls across the motorsport world, especially in the immediate feeder series below F1, motorsport will no longer require drivers to bring enough money to bail out Spain.

 

However, to be serious for a minute... isn't this a basic theme in life?  It's the imagined versus the real advantage.  Real, amazing talent will find a way with a bit of luck.  Andretti is a prime example - found enough money with his brother to start dirt ovals in a $500 Hudson out of a junkyard.  That's all he needed in the beginning.  Compare that to his children and grandchildren - both generations had head starts compared to Mario.  Not the same records, tho.  Would anyone here deny Senna's place in F1 - given his family's wealth?  Or Pedro Rodriquez in Prototypes?  Or Lauda's? 

 

We can legislate equality in law and regulate it in competition - but not "fairness".  We can't change DNA or Determination.  

Well, we don't change the DNA yet, anyway.  Will we have this discussion when we get our first genetically modified driver?  "He's got 20 / 11 vision!!"  "It's not FAIR!!"

 

You've inadvertently given us a great example.

 

Andretti may well of started off with a few hundred dollars and an old car, and used his talent to advance onwards. But it's impossible for anyone to follow his footsteps today. Even to advance through the lowest karting and car levels requires a large financial commitment, money that your Andretti's won't have.

Edited by Fastcake, 04 November 2013 - 19:29.

[undersquare]

Bernie likes plenty of churn and drama among the lesser teams; he's always run F1 so that some teams fail, and the need for pay drivers is all part of that.

 

Once he goes then it might change, but not before.  He's loving it the way it is.

[ray b]

the money is there

it has just been stolen by B E

who then sold the future to the banks

 

why are there no cash prize funds to drivers

at a race or for the years results

almost every other race series pays drivers at each race

but not in F-1

only a small % of some funding gets back to the teams

and no none not even a little prize funds to drivers

[TheUltimateWorrier]

Make Formula One less attractive for wealthy people. Paddock Club signing an exclusive beverages agreement with Bovril would be a good start.

 

But then you'd attract the wealthy meatheads like Schwarzenegger, Van Damme and the two Hogans (Paul and Hulk). Bovril and raw egg cocktails, yum   .

[brr]

There is no reasonable solution since increasing the value of driver talent means distributing the prize money much more unevenly. That would crush the backmarker teams and basically discourage new teams entering F1.

[discover23]

the money is there

it has just been stolen by B E

who then sold the future to the banks

 

why are there no cash prize funds to drivers

at a race or for the years results

almost every other race series pays drivers at each race

but not in F-1

only a small % of some funding gets back to the teams

and no none not even a little prize funds to drivers

Yep.. This is the gist of it. There should be price money per race .. to the team and drivers based on their finishing results..

[billm99uk]

If you think F1 is mostly about the driver though, here are some ideas:
 
-Enforce lower budgets
-Encourage more big companies to sponsor teams so that they can pay for talent
-Make the sport more about the driver: bring back close racing (less aero, better tyres, no DRS, all that nice stuff), eliminate TOs again

You mean all those things people have been trying to do for years and consistently failing? After all DRS was introduced to improve racing. I'd quite like them to introduce a budget cap as I''m an accountant and I've a few hundred exciting ideas of how to get round it. Maybe I should send Helmut Marko my mobile number?

Really you may as well suggest "Pay Adrian Newey $50 million to go design Ben Ainslie an America's Cup yacht in 2014 rather than an F1 car"

Though, come to think of it, that might actually work ;)

[redreni]

I have had discussions of whether F1 is mostly about the driver or the teams. There are many who think it is about the teams. In that case, which driver is in the seat should not matter as much as how much money the team is able to collect, in theory, to build a better car. After all, if you follow that line of thought, it is mostly the car that makes the difference. So, if someone thinks F1 is a team competition mostly, they should not complain but rather encourage so-called pay-drivers. 
 
If you think F1 is mostly about the driver though, here are some ideas:
 
-Enforce lower budgets
-Give more monetary weight to the WDC than the WCC
-Encourage more big companies to sponsor teams so that they can pay for talent
-Make the sport more about the driver: bring back close racing (less aero, better tyres, no DRS, all that nice stuff), eliminate TOs again.
-Increase driver qualifications for super license.

You lost me with the bit about eliminating team orders "again". There was a brief period where TO was technically banned, but it wasn‘t serious. It was never enforced despite blatant use of TOs on numerous occasions prior to the controversial 2010 German Grand Prix. As soon as one team started complaining and asking for the rule to be enforced the FIA very sensibly ditched the rule, since it was unenforceable to begin with. I don‘t beleive team orders can be successfully banned unless constructors are limited to one car each. I don‘t believe team orders should be banned. I don‘t believe F1 is primarily about drivers, I think it‘s a team sport in which the driver plays a crucial but still relatively small part in determining the outcome.

In terms of the ladder, the system is quite obviously not going to result in the best drivers getting to the top because of the financial barriers that block, at every stage, poorly funded drivers and allow better funded ones to progress even if they are not as good as the ones who are priced out. it‘s not really in the F1 teams‘ interests to do anything about this - if the problem were sorted out, it would benefit all of F1 but it wouldn‘t benefit any team in particular, so no team will support any proposed solution if it costs them money in terms of scholarship funds etc. That‘s why the single seater ladder is effectively broken and always has been for as long as it has existed.

The only soluition I can think of is to have a level of regulation and rigid, meritocratic structure, with full scholarships and guaranteed progression through the categories for those who earn them on the track, which unfortunately would be prohibited under European competition law and would require the use of a tiny portion of F1‘s commercial revenues to work, and is therefore doubly impossible.

[RealRacing]

You lost me with the bit about eliminating team orders "again". There was a brief period where TO was technically banned, but it wasn‘t serious. It was never enforced despite blatant use of TOs on numerous occasions prior to the controversial 2010 German Grand Prix. As soon as one team started complaining and asking for the rule to be enforced the FIA very sensibly ditched the rule, since it was unenforceable to begin with. I don‘t beleive team orders can be successfully banned unless constructors are limited to one car each. I don‘t believe team orders should be banned. I don‘t believe F1 is primarily about drivers, I think it‘s a team sport in which the driver plays a crucial but still relatively small part in determining the outcome.

In terms of the ladder, the system is quite obviously not going to result in the best drivers getting to the top because of the financial barriers that block, at every stage, poorly funded drivers and allow better funded ones to progress even if they are not as good as the ones who are priced out. it‘s not really in the F1 teams‘ interests to do anything about this - if the problem were sorted out, it would benefit all of F1 but it wouldn‘t benefit any team in particular, so no team will support any proposed solution if it costs them money in terms of scholarship funds etc. That‘s why the single seater ladder is effectively broken and always has been for as long as it has existed.

The only soluition I can think of is to have a level of regulation and rigid, meritocratic structure, with full scholarships and guaranteed progression through the categories for those who earn them on the track, which unfortunately would be prohibited under European competition law and would require the use of a tiny portion of F1‘s commercial revenues to work, and is therefore doubly impossible.

The TOs discussion is off topic, but for the record, yeah, I was referring to going back to the last period they were banned, therefore "again". And if you believe F1 is mainly a team sport, as I said in my post, you should not be that concerned about pay-drivers anyway so good for you.

 

What you say about meritocracy could be enforced via FIA I guess, with certain necessary requirements to get the superlicense for example.

 

However, if you want to increase the probability of the best drivers being hired over the ones that pay, you have to go for $$ for the teams for driver placement, so money for WDC standings (more than WCC standings). Of course it can be argued that, for example, the money from a pay-driver will allow the team to produce a better car in which even the less talented driver can obtain a better WDC placement...

[rhukkas]

Motorsport is NOT a professional sport, end of.

[pingu666]

sponsors aren't finding f1 attractive. That's the problem

[sergeym]

The only way to get rid of pay drivers is to set very strict budget cap, with money coming out of FOM funds and not from teams themselves. And all top teams and most midfield will never agree to such thing.

 

Otherwise getting driver with sponsor will always be attractive to teams which are short on money. That's just the way of life.

[Jimisgod]

Tell Ferrari to suck it and put a budget cap.

[f1RacingForever]

Introduce a strict budget cap which includes driver salary which will make things easier for smaller teams as well as attract new teams. Give teams more freedom with advertising which will attract more sponsors. Introduce some sort of revenue sharing system similar to those in the mlb and nba. F1 need to drastically reduce the cost of running a team.

[Shiroo]

Get back tobacoo companies, it will solve everything.

[Gorma]

Profits should be shared more evenly and teams should get a bigger part of it. At the moment most of the money is going to the teams that need it the least. Now I'm not saying that should be reversed. Teams make the show.

[f1RacingForever]

Tell Ferrari to suck it and put a budget cap.

Ferrari have already agreed to a resource restriction. It's Redbull who have refused to sign the RRA.

So what i think you meant is "Tell Redbull to suck it"

Edited by f1RacingForever, 05 November 2013 - 06:10.

[PayasYouRace]

Get back tobacoo companies, it will solve everything.

 

Yeah, we'll have a grid full of Marlboro and Camel backed drivers again!

Edited by PayasYouRace, 05 November 2013 - 09:24.

[PayasYouRace]

The only soluition I can think of is to have a level of regulation and rigid, meritocratic structure, with full scholarships and guaranteed progression through the categories for those who earn them on the track, which unfortunately would be prohibited under European competition law and would require the use of a tiny portion of F1‘s commercial revenues to work, and is therefore doubly impossible.

 

Can we expand on this?

 

How would it be prohibited under EU law to have licences based purely on results in the lower cateogories? I'd say a great system would be to say that to drive in F1 you must have finished in, say, top 5 in GP2. To drive in GP2 you must have finished say top 5 in GP3, etc.

 

Many other sports have entries to competition based solely on results in lower leagues. Why can't this be the case in F1?

[brr]

Can we expand on this?

 

How would it be prohibited under EU law to have licences based purely on results in the lower cateogories? I'd say a great system would be to say that to drive in F1 you must have finished in, say, top 5 in GP2. To drive in GP2 you must have finished say top 5 in GP3, etc.

 

Many other sports have entries to competition based solely on results in lower leagues. Why can't this be the case in F1?

 

Ever heard of the FIA Super License?

[sergeym]

Can we expand on this?

 

How would it be prohibited under EU law to have licences based purely on results in the lower cateogories? I'd say a great system would be to say that to drive in F1 you must have finished in, say, top 5 in GP2. To drive in GP2 you must have finished say top 5 in GP3, etc.

 

Many other sports have entries to competition based solely on results in lower leagues. Why can't this be the case in F1?

 

And how this is different from current situation? You make it sound like current pay drivers came out of nowhere and went straight into F1. Maldonado is GP2 champion, Guiterez - finished 3rd in 2012, Chilton finished 4rth in 2012.

Edited by sergeym, 05 November 2013 - 09:40.

[PayasYouRace]

Ever heard of the FIA Super License?

 

 

And how this is different from current situation? You make it sound like current pay drivers came out of nowhere and went straight into F1. Maldonado is GP2 champion, Guiterez - finished 3rd in 2012, Chilton finished 4rth in 2012.

 

The reason it's different is that the Super License applies to only F1 and is not granted solely for results in GP2. Many of the current drivers have skipped GP2/F3000 entirely or have come to F1 by other means. That's what I want clarified. Why can't it be stricter?

 

Under my suggestion only (if we say top 5) Leimer, Bird, Colado, Nasr and Coletti could be granted F1 licences for next year. This is based on the implicit assumption that they only arrived at GP2 by being in a top 5 position in GP3, etc.

[Nonesuch]

After all, the car is more important than the driver, right? Another thing racing fans don't want to hear.

 

I disagree. If 'racing fans' were all about the driver, why are the stands at a lot of spec-series so devoid of fans?

 

F1 now has a bit of both. F1 allows the teams to develop their cars, but only in very narrowly defined areas. Then the men drawing up the rules act all shocked when it becomes impossible to compensate for a deficit in one area by making progress in another. It's aero or bust, and in that sense it's nothing other than shameful that no team is able to really match Red Bull. What are they doing over at Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes, or Lotus? Actually, what have they been doing since 2009?

 

But what can be done and by who?

 

There was an article on Autosport recently about the dubious role played by Ecclestone and his buddies over at Delta Topco, CVC and the rest of them. It seems it should be more than possible to return a far larger share of the revenue generated by F1 to the teams.

[redreni]

The TOs discussion is off topic, but for the record, yeah, I was referring to going back to the last period they were banned, therefore "again". And if you believe F1 is mainly a team sport, as I said in my post, you should not be that concerned about pay-drivers anyway so good for you.
 
What you say about meritocracy could be enforced via FIA I guess, with certain necessary requirements to get the superlicense for example.
 
However, if you want to increase the probability of the best drivers being hired over the ones that pay, you have to go for $$ for the teams for driver placement, so money for WDC standings (more than WCC standings). Of course it can be argued that, for example, the money from a pay-driver will allow the team to produce a better car in which even the less talented driver can obtain a better WDC placement...

I don‘t understand why I‘m not supposed to want F1 teams to be able to get their hands on the best drivers just because I regard F1 as primarily a competition between teams (including drivers) rather than purely a competition between drivers. The problems with the single seater ladder are, in my view, merely examples of a wider trend where there is no support for measures that would be good for the sport as a whole, merely because most teams can‘t see how it would give them an advantage over the others.

The reason for my confusion over team orders is that I am the worst kind of pedant and you said you wanted to see them "eliminated again" rather than "banned again", and team orders still cropped up fairly frequently even when they were banned. For what it‘s worth, though, I don‘t agree that even an effective ban on team orders, assuming for the sake of argument that such a thing is possible, would encourage teams to spend money on hiring better drivers more so than if team orders were allowed. Indeed, some teams might take it as encouragement to sign a worse second driver than they otherwise would have as a way of making sure they can still have a de facto number 1 driver, especially if there‘s an opportunity to make extra money from the second driver‘s sponsor by doing that. The countervailing factor, which applies equally whether team orders are possible or not, is that it is in any team‘s competitive and financial interests to maximise its WCC points and to use both its cars to take WDC points off their rivals, so it‘s a financial balancing act between hard cash and potential results. Hard cash often wins out.

Edited by redreni, 05 November 2013 - 10:55.

[sergeym]

The reason it's different is that the Super License applies to only F1 and is not granted solely for results in GP2. Many of the current drivers have skipped GP2/F3000 entirely or have come to F1 by other means. That's what I want clarified. Why can't it be stricter?

 

Under my suggestion only (if we say top 5) Leimer, Bird, Colado, Nasr and Coletti could be granted F1 licences for next year. This is based on the implicit assumption that they only arrived at GP2 by being in a top 5 position in GP3, etc.

 

F1 licenses are not an issue. All current pay drivers easily qualify under stricter criteria and any talented driver can get Super License if he has support from F1 team.

[PayasYouRace]

F1 licenses are not an issue. All current pay drivers easily qualify under stricter criteria and any talented driver can get Super License if he has support from F1 team.

 

No you're missing my point. redrini said that progression solely for those who earned it by on track results would be prohibited under EU law. I'm asking why that would be the case, using the example I've come up with to flesh out the idea that results = progression. In my example the only way into F1 would be to finish in the top 5 of GP2. And the only way into GP2 would be to finish in the top 5 of GP3 or equivalent. (Obviously this would be done with a licencing system.)

[redreni]

Can we expand on this?

 

How would it be prohibited under EU law to have licences based purely on results in the lower cateogories? I'd say a great system would be to say that to drive in F1 you must have finished in, say, top 5 in GP2. To drive in GP2 you must have finished say top 5 in GP3, etc.

 

Many other sports have entries to competition based solely on results in lower leagues. Why can't this be the case in F1?

 

Well it was my understanding (and this admittedly comes mainly from reading Deiter Rencken's columns rather than any particular expertise on my part) that the FIA has an agreement with the European Commission that, as a quid pro quo for the fact that anyone wanting to run certain kinds of motor racing competition in Europe needs a competition license from the FIA, the FIA must grant competition licenses to anyone wanting to organise a single seater championship, subject only to basic safety standards being met, and it can't show favouritism to its own championships or, indeed, to FOM's. Maybe it's a stretch to call that "EU law" but as I understand it it is ultimately a question of the FIA keeping the European Commission sweet so that they don't get investigated for potential breaches of EU competition law further down the line.

 

And this is why there are so many different categories and this makes it difficult to compare young drivers against each other or to set the kind of qualification standards you suggest. Who is to say it isn't better to win FR3.5 than to be fifth in GP2, for example? Or that it isn't better to win DTM for that matter, as Paul Di Resta did? What about somebody who wins Indy Lights and then finishes sixth in Indycar in their first season, should an F1 team not be allowed to hire such a driver if they want to, above a guy who was fifth in GP2?

 

I don't think it would go down to well with the F1 teams, in Brussells or, frankly, at the European Court of Justice if the FIA started using superlicense qualification criteria to effectively say to young drivers "if you want to get to F1, this is the route you have to take from karting through to GP2, and if you don't compete in the categories we stipulate, you can't have a license". It wouldn't go down at all well with the promoters and competitor teams in the rival categories to GP3, GP2 etc (i.e. the ones that aren't on the list of qualifying series for an F1 superlicense). The FIA would be effectively driving them out of business.

Edited by redreni, 05 November 2013 - 11:36.

[Amphicar]

No you're missing my point. redrini said that progression solely for those who earned it by on track results would be prohibited under EU law. I'm asking why that would be the case, using the example I've come up with to flesh out the idea that results = progression. In my example the only way into F1 would be to finish in the top 5 of GP2. And the only way into GP2 would be to finish in the top 5 of GP3 or equivalent. (Obviously this would be done with a licencing system.)

It would be prohibited under EU law on the grounds of restraint of trade. There are other race series competing with GP3 and GP2 and to restrict access to F1 only to drivers who have "graduated" through both GP3 and GP2 would be a limitation on free competition. It can't be claimed to be essential to ensure that only the best drivers get through because looking back to 1990 only three of the 12 drivers who have become World Champion came through GP2 or its predecessor Formula 3000. Requiring drivers to graduate through F3000/GP2 would have prevented Ayrton Senna, Nigel Mansell, Alain Prost, Michael Schumacher, Jacques Villeneuve, Mika Hakkinen, Kimi Raikkonen, Jenson Button and Sebastian Vettel from entering F1 when they did.

[redreni]

It would be prohibited under EU law on the grounds of restraint of trade. There are other race series competing with GP3 and GP2 and to restrict access to F1 only to drivers who have "graduated" through both GP3 and GP2 would be a limitation on free competition. It can't be claimed to be essential to ensure that only the best drivers get through because looking back to 1990 only three of the 12 drivers who have become World Champion came through GP2 or its predecessor Formula 3000. Requiring drivers to graduate through F3000/GP2 would have prevented Ayrton Senna, Nigel Mansell, Alain Prost, Michael Schumacher, Jacques Villeneuve, Mika Hakkinen, Kimi Raikkonen, Jenson Button and Sebastian Vettel from entering F1 when they did.

 

Except arguably it wouldn't, because if those drivers had known they needed to compete in F3000/GP2 in order to get into F1, they would perhaps have done that instead of doing British F3 or World Sportscar Championship or whatever else they chose to do instead. The one benefit of forcing everyone to take the same route into F1 is they can't avoid competing against their strongest peers, and so F1 teams would be able to compare young drivers more readily. But I agree with you, it would be indefensible if anybody challenged it through the courts, and there are plenty of potential losers from such a reform who would surely do exactly that were anything of this nature to be implemented.

[rhukkas]

The mistake you guys are making is thinking motorsport has some hierarchical system that is only disrupted once a driver reaches F1, when in fact it isn't. Look if a kid's dad has to spend at least £250,000 a year once they reach about 12 (prior to that it's around 80k for 4 years) and then once they reach 15-16 they are looking at 300k+ to race cars... and then 500,000-2,000,000 when you're at GP3 and GP2 levels then it really is silly to discuss 'pay-drivers' in F1. 99% of drivers are pay drivers... This sport, bar a tiny amount of exceptions, is a rich man's game. A game where the aim is to inflate costs, deplete grids, and become the 'winner' from a much smaller pool of talent.

 

The reality is the concept of 'the professional race driver' is dying. It's dying in all forms of motorsport. That's the new reality. It was like this in the early days of motorsport and we are just regressing back to that point.

[Jon83]

Tenmantaylor - you have misunderstood what I said. If you put Alonso in a Caterham or a Marussia, I very much doubt the actual results would be very different. That is why I can see why these teams do what they do.

[Fastcake]

Get back tobacoo companies, it will solve everything.

There's this thing called the law, which would prohibit them coming back. F1 was on borrowed time in the 2000s.

Well it was my understanding (and this admittedly comes mainly from reading Deiter Rencken's columns rather than any particular expertise on my part) that the FIA has an agreement with the European Commission that, as a quid pro quo for the fact that anyone wanting to run certain kinds of motor racing competition in Europe needs a competition license from the FIA, the FIA must grant competition licenses to anyone wanting to organise a single seater championship, subject only to basic safety standards being met, and it can't show favouritism to its own championships or, indeed, to FOM's. Maybe it's a stretch to call that "EU law" but as I understand it it is ultimately a question of the FIA keeping the European Commission sweet so that they don't get investigated for potential breaches of EU competition law further down the line.

That may be one of the reasons the FIA is looking at moving to Switzerland, like many other sporting federations. Apart from becoming as rich and corrupt as FIFA or the IOC of course.

Edited by Fastcake, 05 November 2013 - 13:31.

[billm99uk]

Introduce a strict budget cap which includes driver salary which will make things easier for smaller teams as well as attract new teams.

 

More or less asking for a 'brown envelope' situation for the higher paid drivers. Or forcing them to get most of their money from sponsors (as Grosjean is from Total) or merchandising (as NASCAR drivers do).

[JSDSKI]

.... You've inadvertently given us a great example.

 

Andretti may well of started off with a few hundred dollars and an old car, and used his talent to advance onwards. But it's impossible for anyone to follow his footsteps today. Even to advance through the lowest karting and car levels requires a large financial commitment, money that your Andretti's won't have.

 

A lot of the current guys in Nascar and Sprints started the same way.  Even in today's world you can start a career on dirt in an old junker.  There are a few on that circuit who could compete on the current F1 grid.  But those days are long gone. Admittedly, Andretti is a unique example from a unique time.  He's the one side of the seesaw with Senna probably on the opposite end.  Equal in talent.  Far apart in funds.

 

For me, determination and the will to compete is as important as talent and dollars.  A driver must be a complete obsessive and competitive to the edge of sociopathic behavior.  Example:  Schumacher's sqeeze of Barrichello (can't remember the race, a year ago or so).  MS pushed both of them within an inch of catastrophe!   Why?  It's not like he was a rookie making a banzai attempt at attention or it was for his first win or championship.   Simple,  Neither MS nor RB could act in no other way.

 

Alonso and Webber are probably the most recent examples of real talent overcoming difficult circumstances.  True, they got noticed soon enough and at the right time. But, it''s not like they started off with a half million bankroll.  And Alex Rossi is moving along and his parents are certainly not wealthy.  Tremayne has an excellent story in Saward's GP+ (always an enjoyable report) this week.

Edited by JSDSKI, 05 November 2013 - 17:36.