Wave goodbye to talent
Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2011 6:19 am
Over the last few years Formula One has been approaching a fork in the road, and it would seem as though it has veered off down the path we all hoped it wouldn't.
It is no secret that motorsport as a whole is a sport governed by sponsors and deep pockets, from karting all the way through to the top flight championships such as Formula 1, Indy Car or NASCAR, the problem comes in when teams begin to sacrifice talent for a bit of quick cash.
We all hear the stories of the highly paid drivers relaxing on their yachts and taking holidays in exotic locations, but these high paid drivers are a fairly rare occurrence as Formula 1 heads into the next few years. Fernando Alonso arrived at Ferrari in 2010 sporting a nifty $40m annual salary, a figure which handed him just over 30% of the entire annual earnings... of all the drivers combined (estimated at roughly $130.9m). The rest of this ridiculous figure was split between a host of other drivers, with most of the top team's drivers taking the larger share of the pot.
This is more than enough motivation to set any young aspiring driver into overdrive, the only problem with this is that the darker side of Formula 1 starts to rear its ugly head. 2011 will see no fewer than 5 pay drivers on the grid, which has pushed some new talents, as well as some seasoned campaigners off the grid. Nico Hulkenberg is without a doubt going to be one of the least impressed of the ousted drivers, after an impressive debut season and a pole position in brazil, he finds himself sitting on the sidelines while Pastor Maldonado brings with him nearly $15m in potential backing. Nick Heidfeld is another driver who, after 10 years in the sport, has been dropped for the Telmex backed Sergio Perez who is estimated to be bringing Sauber $10m in sponsorship.
There are a host of other drivers paying to be in the sport, amongst the ranks is Russian Vitaly Petrov who is reportedly paying $15m for his spot at Renault, Jerome d'Ambrosio has confirmed that he handed over roughly $5m for his Virgin Racing seat, and Narain Karthikeyan brings with him huge amounts of backing from Tata. Let us not forget that HRT, the poorest team on the grid still has another spot available after announcing they will be dropping Bruno Senna for 2011.
We must realize that even the great Michael Shumacher had to pay $500 000 for his seat, a sum he has made back tenfold over the years, but a line must be drawn somewhere, and a driver forking over $15m has got to be well past it. The question we now have to ask ourselves is, are we seeing the age of the true racing driver fading into oblivion? Many of the teams have stated that the sport is becoming far to dependent on money, and only 4 of the 12 teams even have a long term financial plan, the rest are all battling to just make the grid, and as such we could be seeing a decline in talent as drivers make up the teams operational budgets.
Let us all hope that we will, in the near future, see a bit of a shift in the world of Formula One, and that we see the return of talented young drivers who aren't forced to pay ridiculous sums for their behind to be molded into the car....
It is no secret that motorsport as a whole is a sport governed by sponsors and deep pockets, from karting all the way through to the top flight championships such as Formula 1, Indy Car or NASCAR, the problem comes in when teams begin to sacrifice talent for a bit of quick cash.
We all hear the stories of the highly paid drivers relaxing on their yachts and taking holidays in exotic locations, but these high paid drivers are a fairly rare occurrence as Formula 1 heads into the next few years. Fernando Alonso arrived at Ferrari in 2010 sporting a nifty $40m annual salary, a figure which handed him just over 30% of the entire annual earnings... of all the drivers combined (estimated at roughly $130.9m). The rest of this ridiculous figure was split between a host of other drivers, with most of the top team's drivers taking the larger share of the pot.
This is more than enough motivation to set any young aspiring driver into overdrive, the only problem with this is that the darker side of Formula 1 starts to rear its ugly head. 2011 will see no fewer than 5 pay drivers on the grid, which has pushed some new talents, as well as some seasoned campaigners off the grid. Nico Hulkenberg is without a doubt going to be one of the least impressed of the ousted drivers, after an impressive debut season and a pole position in brazil, he finds himself sitting on the sidelines while Pastor Maldonado brings with him nearly $15m in potential backing. Nick Heidfeld is another driver who, after 10 years in the sport, has been dropped for the Telmex backed Sergio Perez who is estimated to be bringing Sauber $10m in sponsorship.
There are a host of other drivers paying to be in the sport, amongst the ranks is Russian Vitaly Petrov who is reportedly paying $15m for his spot at Renault, Jerome d'Ambrosio has confirmed that he handed over roughly $5m for his Virgin Racing seat, and Narain Karthikeyan brings with him huge amounts of backing from Tata. Let us not forget that HRT, the poorest team on the grid still has another spot available after announcing they will be dropping Bruno Senna for 2011.
We must realize that even the great Michael Shumacher had to pay $500 000 for his seat, a sum he has made back tenfold over the years, but a line must be drawn somewhere, and a driver forking over $15m has got to be well past it. The question we now have to ask ourselves is, are we seeing the age of the true racing driver fading into oblivion? Many of the teams have stated that the sport is becoming far to dependent on money, and only 4 of the 12 teams even have a long term financial plan, the rest are all battling to just make the grid, and as such we could be seeing a decline in talent as drivers make up the teams operational budgets.
Let us all hope that we will, in the near future, see a bit of a shift in the world of Formula One, and that we see the return of talented young drivers who aren't forced to pay ridiculous sums for their behind to be molded into the car....
