I think he’s lost the plot this year. Used to think he was a breath of fresh air, a bit of an old school team boss, but this year he’s turned into a hypocritical moaner. You expect him to defend his driver, just like Toto does but there is a world of difference between the way the two of them face the media.
Pressure. Lots and lots (of other peoples) money to account for…. l mean, how much does a top driver get?
Lewis Hamilton Mercedes £22m Max Verstappen Red Bull £18m Fernando Alonso Alpine £15m Sebastian Vettel Aston Martin £11m Daniel Ricciardo McLaren £11m Charles Leclerc Ferrari £9m Valtteri Bottas Mercedes £7m Carlos Sainz Ferrari £7m Lance Stroll Aston Martin £7m Kimi Raikkonen Alfa Romeo £7m Sergio Perez Red Bull £6m Lando Norris McLaren £4m Esteban Ocon Alpine £4m Pierre Gasly AlphaTauri £4m Antonio Giovinazzi Alfa Romeo £730,800 Mick Schumacher Haas £730,800 Nikita Mazepin Haas £730,800 Nicholas Latifi Williams £730,800 George Russell Williams £730,800 Yuki Tsunoda AlphaTauri £364,900 Plus some bonuses allegedly...
It’s at the mid-lower end that that gets really interesting. Other than the fact that his dad owns the team, how on Earth is Lance Stroll paid 7 million quid?
Most of them aren’t actually paid by the team, rather they’ve worked a salary surplus in to their sponsorship deal. It’s the same in most forms of motorsport, there’s very, very few people who are actually paid to be there. And many that are paid to be there who like to refer to themselves as ‘factory drivers’ are not actually factory drivers in the way we used to know. Bar the very top teams, most cannot afford to pay drivers and frankly they’ve got people queued up to pay to jump in their cars anyway which is why so much of the grid are doing just that. As usual for this period of time we live in, there’s no context. One infamous guy who I’ll leave nameless in touring cars but is by no means a rarity was a ‘factory driver’ but his dad owned the company sponsoring the team and was sponsoring him as well and paying him a wage. Hugely common.
I used do a little work for a small race team in the nineties and all his drivers paid his team to drive his cars. Majority of his drivers came over from Japan to race in the U.K. on student visa’s on the pretence they were at university.
Intense. Stewards enquiry re Hamilton/ Verstappen contact? Hopefully nothing will change the result. Everything to race for next week.
The faster car helps as well Must be handy when you’re getting your arse handed to you week on week then you can turn the power up to 11. Hey presto, back to the top step
