F1 Pay Drivers - Right or Wrong?

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jonnyf90

jonnyf90

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juanito_f90
What are your views on pay drivers in F1? Surely F1 is a sport where only the most talented and fastest guys should race? Not the guys who bring a massive sponsorship deal to the team...

This year had 6 pay drivers: Maldonado, Senna, Petrov, Perez, Karthikeyan and Pic.
Out of that six, only Perez has shown that he has more to offer than his sponsorship?
 
It's a bit unfair to say Perez is the only decent one. Maldonado won in Spain, that should count for something and Pic was a rookie in a crap car.
 
Justin
It's a bit unfair to say Perez is the only decent one. Maldonado won in Spain, that should count for something and Pic was a rookie in a crap car.
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Yeah I know Maldonado had an all important win, BUT he should've done a lot better through the season, and Perez probably would have won at Sepang if he hadn't had ran wide.
 
Pay driver = a driver who is clearly taken for their money rather than for talent.

Senna, Maldonado, Petrov, Perez, Karthikeyan, Pic = Not pay drivers. All of them have good or decent junior formula records. All of them were hired at least partially because they are good drivers. None of them are so bad they wouldn't be considered at all if it wasn't for the cash. Only really Karthikeyan and Senna are mediocre would be below other options...but they're still not bad drivers.

Real pay drivers are:
Pedro Lamy, Ricardo Rosset, Pedro Diniz (though he did get better later), Alex Yoong, etc.

And this isn't something special about Formula 1 - its something that appears in all motorsports because motorsport is inherently expensive to compete. Unlike atheletic-type sports such as football or rugby, in motorsport you need to spend a lot of money just to get onto the starting grid, let alone compete in races or championships.

There is nothing wrong with it, if we didn't have people spending money on motorsport, we would have no motorsport. That being said, all 24/25 of this year's F1 drivers are there on merit. True, some of them have been picked over their peers for the extra money they bring, but they are not picked for money in spite of a lack of talent.

The real "pay drivers" are those that have no talent and teams take them on literally only for the money. The teams clearly don't intend for said driver to do well.

To put things in perspective, you're looking at a budget of $2 million just to compete in GP2. Pretty obviously, its going to be difficult for anyone to find that kind of money without some serious business connections.

I'm getting bored of people over-using the term "pay driver" when they don't like a particular driver. There hasn't been a genuine pay driver in the sport for a long time. Its a fact of motorsport that bringing money is an advantage because money pays for the equipment.
Money isn't bad. Bad drivers are bad. Are we plagued with bad drivers in F1? Hardly.
 
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Ardius
Bad drivers are bad. Are we plagued with bad drivers in F1? Hardly.
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I wouldn't say plagued, but there are a few who let the side down with substandard driving... Maldonado's crashes and spins? Grosjean at Spa? Karthikeyan's blocking as a backmarker? To name a few.
 
I don't follow F1 but I'm curious what's the main difference between being paid or having a contract? You get paid either way regardless of performance but I guess no money is for sure with contract?

The way If a team wants to pay me x amount to race on top of what I might make from finishes or anything outside that, then why would I say no or have issues with it?
 
The point I'm making is that some drivers come to f1 with a lot of money from outside sponsors, in the case of Maldonado, from PDVSA. This money goes to the team. He still gets paid his salary for racing with the team too.
 
jonnyf90
Surely F1 is a sport where only the most talented and fastest guys should race? Not the guys who bring a massive sponsorship deal to the team...
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This just demonstrates your fundamental lack of understanding about the sport. The top teams spend $400 million per season - I've heard Red Bull spent over $600 million this year alone, but I can't find a reliable source to go with it - and the back markers have to spend $50 million just to complete the season. Where is that money going to come from if not from sponsorship?
 
jonnyf90
I wouldn't say plagued, but there are a few who let the side down with substandard driving... Maldonado's crashes and spins? Grosjean at Spa? Karthikeyan's blocking as a backmarker? To name a few.
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I think you need to go and watch some season reviews from the 1980s and 1990s. While Maldonado and Grosjean have had some very silly and stupid incidents this year..they are rookies/inexperienced. And they've made up for it somewhat with their impressive speed. There are far, far worse drivers out there.

The real "pay drivers" had the same number of incidents or more and they were slow.

Karthikeyan has been in the way of the race leaders a couple of times this year but not excessively. Its inevitable that a slower car is going to get in the way at some point because not all sections of all tracks are easy to move out of the way not to mention overtake normally.
I really don't see anything wrong with the way Karthikeyan has driven this year considering his equipment. Yeah he's not been quicker than De La Rosa but nor has he been particularly bad. I don't see any reason to single him out beyond the field having a very high level quality this season.
 
jonnyf90
The point I'm making is that some drivers come to f1 with a lot of money from outside sponsors, in the case of Maldonado, from PDVSA. This money goes to the team. He still gets paid his salary for racing with the team too.
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And how is any of this a problem?

Like Ardius said, you should probably check out the 1980s and 1990s for the real pay drivers - rich playboys who fancied themselves as racing drivers and had more money than sense (or talent), which they used to buy a seat for a season and got in everyone's way.

These days, open-wheel motorsport follows a rigid structure whereby drivers need to go through feeder series and earn a superlicence before teams can even begin to consider taking them on. These tiered feeder series tend to root out the drivers who have no chance of being competitive in Formula 1 before they get anywhere near Formula 1. Just look at this year's GP2 Series grid for proof: the likes of Rodolfo González, Ricardo Teixeira, Simon Trummer and Giancarlo Serenelli have no business being in Formula 1, and the demand for a superlicence prevents them from getting there.
 
I understand your point Ardius, i also agree, they aren't all pay driver, BUT we can't deny the problems of this system when we see a talented driver like kobayashi out only because he doesn't have enough sponsorship.
Sauber was a great team this year. Perez to mclaren, ok. Keep at least the other one. Nope. Yeah i know money blabla, but it's clearly nonsense, if we talk about sport. But this is only pure business i guess.
 
Okay, Sergio Perez originally brought Telmex/Claro money to Sauber. They lost that when he left for McLaren, and have regained it in signing Gutierrez. So Gutierrez has really replaced Perez.

This means that Nico Hulkenberg has replaced Kamui Kobayashi, even though his signing came before Kobayashi's depature. Kobayashi does not have any sponsorship to his name, but then neither does Hulkenberg. If money was the team's only concern, then surely the problem was fixed when they took on Gutierrez. So why didn't they keep Kobayashi?

Kobayashi was told that he needed to find sponsors to keep his seat. That means that he had lost the opportunity to keep the seat on merit alone. After all, he held onto the seat for three seasons without needing to bring sponsors. And he has seriously underwhelmed - he hasn't come close to matching fan expectations of him. Sure, he got a podium in Suzuka this year, but given the initial reception that he got, you could be forgiven for thinking that he got a podium in his third race, not this third year. Kobayashi hasn't met his targets, which is why he got replaced.
 
I always thought (and still do) that a pay driver was a driver that didn't get money from the team, who instead had to pay for his seat, hence the term "pay" driver.
 
Not that I'm a future Formula 1 driver, but, I have a point to make.


When I'm older, I plan on opening a tuning garage. Winning races is a great form of advertisement. "Oh, look, ****** ***** (insert company name) won a championship... And, their headquarters is in my hometown. Yeah, I'll get my car repaired by these guys. They obviously know their stuff." But, Formula 1 will be way above the reach of almost any Canadian enterprises.


If that's the case, I'd let a talented driver pay his way in. Maldonado won a race. In a faster car, even he might have a chance at the championship. We all know that Maldonado brought some Venezuelan sponsorship money. That sponsorship could make my car faster. Making the car faster could, in return, make the drivers seem faster. From there, then, the championship would seem more viable. Then, my advertising would work. People who watch Formula 1 would know the name of my company, and recognize it as a quality product.


When I went to "Rally of the Tall Pines," I met the drivers of the www.planetmotorsport.ca sponsored Impreza rally car; a beautiful 2007 Impreza, not too asimilar from my own. Then, talking to the second-in-command crew member, I discovered that their shop is a local shop. Since then, I've decided that I'd like to work there, in the future.


The advertising works. Can-Jam motorsports' Crazy Leo Urlichich has made the black and orange paint job a very familiar sight, in Canada, among rally fans.


Crazy Leo isn't a pay driver, directly, but, I've seen a fair few drivers who bring their own rally cars. And sometimes they win. That's a win-win for everyone. The companies and sponsors get advertising, and the driver gets to race in a top-tier racing series. The logic spreads across all of motorsports.
 
A pay driver is indeed someone who pays for his seat. The term today typically means someone who brings money to a team in the form of sponsorship. They get paid a salary, which usually comes from the sponsorship they bring.
 
jonnyf90
This year had 6 pay drivers: Maldonado, Senna, Petrov, Perez, Karthikeyan and Pic.
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What about Alonso?
prisonermonkeys
Kobayashi was told that he needed to find sponsors to keep his seat. That means that he had lost the opportunity to keep the seat on merit alone. After all, he held onto the seat for three seasons without needing to bring sponsors. And he has seriously underwhelmed - he hasn't come close to matching fan expectations of him. Sure, he got a podium in Suzuka this year, but given the initial reception that he got, you could be forgiven for thinking that he got a podium in his third race, not this third year. Kobayashi hasn't met his targets, which is why he got replaced.
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The difference between Koba and Perez was 6 points this season and both were very close to each other in qualifying performance. Yet one is on his way out of the sport and the other is getting a huge upgrade in a seat at McLaren. You can claim fine margins are crucial in F1, but I think money is also a factor in what has happened to the Sauber drivers.
 
zippy_the_cat
Cough ... Max Chilton ... cough.
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Have you seen his actual results? He might have seriously struggled in 2010 and 2011, but loo at what he achieved in GP2 this year: two race wins, two podiums, a pole position and regular points-scoring finishes - sixteen in twenty-four races. He demonstrated a significant improvement in form this year; where he finished 20th in 2011, he was 4th overall this year. He has also met the minimum three hundred kilometres' worth of testing with a Formula 1 car to qualify for a superlicence.

Maybe he does have a rich father who only owns a racing team so that his son can be a racing driver - but Chilton has certainly done enough this year to justify a seat with some backing.
 
I have always thought that any talentless pay drivers (like Paul Belmondo, who is the biggest joke ever in F1 in my opinion) shouldn't belong in any motorsports. Sure, they might bring money for their team from their sponsors (*cough* Go Daddy *cough*) but they have no place in the series they're running in as a competitor. One great example of these pay drivers' "greatest achievements" is Dennis Vitolo taking out Nigel Mansell at the 1994 Indy 500.
 
It supports the sport and is a common practice in lower categories.

Also consider nowadays it is not easy getting a super license as it used to (won't see fiascos like in previous years), and 3 of them were pretty decisive this year in a good way: Alonso fighting for the championship, Maldonado winning a race, Perez to mclaren.
 
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Carbonox
(like Paul Belmondo, who is the biggest joke ever in F1 in my opinion)
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Takachiho. Inoue.

As I think Ardius pointed out, on occasion a pay driver can produce decent results; Pedro Diniz is the exception to the rule that all pay drivers are absolutely terrible.

I don't get why people think pay drivers are something new and evil, it's like people think that the sport prior to 2004 was run on pixie dust and unicorn tears. There have always been pay drivers, they're nothing new, but as Ardius and PM have pointed out, there's a huge difference to be made between drivers such as Maldonado, Petrov, Pic and even de Cesaris compared to Rosset, Lavaggi, Inoue, Noda, Adams, Beretta and Nakano.

Interestingly, excluding Lavaggi (1996), Rosset (1996-98) and Nakano (1997-98), the pay drivers Inoue, Noda, Adams and Beretta were from 1994. 1994 was a year of truly dreadful drivers.
 
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I'm not very knowledgable on this subject, so this may sound stupid. If you're at the point when you have so little money that you have to find a pay driver with little talent, why even bother? At that point, most likely your team will not be competitive, and having someone who needs to pay to drive will not work. So... Why not just sit out the year? Because racing is just too much fun? Maybe I'm just missing something here.
 
Liquid
Interestingly, excluding Lavaggi (1996), Rosset (1996-98) and Nakano (1997-98), the pay drivers Inoue, Noda, Adams and Beretta were from 1994. 1994 was a year of truly dreadful drivers.
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I remember watching an old F1 race from that year back when Speed still did the Formula 1 Classics thing, and I had always wondered who the hell all of those guys were.




Schwartz
So... Why not just sit out the year? Because racing is just too much fun? Maybe I'm just missing something here.
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If you sit out a year, the lack of international exposure will quickly sink the team. Getting a pay driver at least gets your cars on the track where they can be seen (and, potentially, seen by interested advertisers).
 
Carbonox
I have always thought that any talentless pay drivers (like Paul Belmondo, who is the biggest joke ever in F1 in my opinion) shouldn't belong in any motorsports.
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This is the problem that I have with people talking about the "pay drivers". People seem to think that the only way they get there is by bringing money. The problem is that it isn't so simple.

Let's say one of the big NASCAR drivers decides he wants to try something totally different and go into F1, and to help appeal to teams he comes backed with big sponsor dollars. "Sign him up", right? Well..., no. He isn't qualified for F1; not just argumentatively, but legally. To participate as an F1 driver, drivers must hold a "super license" and to get that they must prove themselves worthy by doing extremely well at a lower open-wheel level. This means any driver on the F1 grid had to exhibit talent in order to even be there.

It's also important to point out that when we speak of best, good, and worst in F1, it's relatively speaking. The worst driver on the grid is still better than 99% of drivers in the world, or he couldn't even be there.
 
Pay drivers are, were and will be in motorsport as long as motorsport exists.

Some of them will become World Champions like Lauda or Schumacher and others will become entries at f1rejects site like Yoong, Marquez or Noda.
 
KWZX10
I understand your point Ardius, i also agree, they aren't all pay driver, BUT we can't deny the problems of this system when we see a talented driver like kobayashi out only because he doesn't have enough sponsorship.
Sauber was a great team this year. Perez to mclaren, ok. Keep at least the other one. Nope. Yeah i know money blabla, but it's clearly nonsense, if we talk about sport. But this is only pure business i guess.
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Boohoo. I'm a Kobayashi fan but I don't really feel sorry for his position.

There are literally thousands of very talented racing drivers who never even got past karting level simply because they couldn't afford it.
As I pointed out earlier, just to race in GP2 you need to bring around $2 million. I don't know about you, but I don't find a spare 2mil lying about behind the sofa.

So its pretty much expected that to get to F1 you either need to be lucky and have the backing of a manufacturer or team programme or bring a shed load of personally-found sponsorship (be it family or not).

Kobayashi got 3 whole years in F1 just on his talent alone. That is quite exceptional and he is lucky he even got that. If it wasn't for one Timo Glock, Kamui would be back in his dad's Sushi restaurant in Japan.
I really can't feel sorry for him now, though I do hope he gets a seat as he's by far one of the most exciting drivers lately.

Its well known that Ayrton Senna didn't exactly come from a poor family....in my opinion, the quicker you accept this side of motorsport, the better. Its never going to change, despite the constant talk all the time of trying "cut costs".
 
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Just to take it out of F1, it exists as well in NASCAR, but the performance difference is huge between the two.
 
Ardius
Its well known that Ayrton Senna didn't exactly come from a poor family....in my opinion, the quicker you accept this side of motorsport, the better. Its never going to change, despite the constant talk all the time of trying "cut costs".
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And Michael Schumacher did not get that Jordan drive based on his credentials alone; a lovely cheque for £150,000 addressed to Jordan Grand Prix sweetened the deal.
 

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