Do you have employees yourself? I did. I can tell you that the following saying is true: "If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys". If a boss wants to keep the best staff, motivated, loyal, and conscientious, he can't afford to pay bottom wages. You make false savings by paying low wages, in my experience.
Williams have shown great pay management while still winning the WDC. They refused to capitulate to Hill's inflated pay demands following his '96 WDC in the best car. So he had to go to Arrows, and Villeneuve went on to win the WDC in the Williams. "Do you want the fastest car or not ?" seems focus the mind of drivers who want to win races
I don't think it quite happened like that. Since the death of Senna in 1994, Williams had been chasing Frentzen to replace him in the team. Frentzen was at Sauber, and very much heralded like a promising talent of the future. Had it not been for his bad temper, Frentzen would have supplanted Schumacher among Mercedes young drivers of the time. But Frentzen was contracted at Sauber who wouldn't let him go. Jacques Villeneuve came at Williams in 1996 and impressed Frank Williams who wanted to promote him to Number One, disappointed that Hill had missed winning the championship the previous year. Early in the year, Frentzen became available and Williams signed him for 1997, with the intention of sacking Hill at the end of the year. The irony is that in 1996, Hill obtained better results than Villeneuve that year, against all expectations, and even clinched the title, having been told 3 races from the end that he had lost his drive. So, it wasn't a case of Damon Hill asking a huge increase after his WDC, but rather Williams wanting to get rid of him ahead of it. Patrick Head said later that Williams didn't expect Damon Hill to win, but thought Jacques Villeneuve would be champion. As it turned out, Frentzen never fulfilled the promises his early career indicated.
The Williams sponsorship manager definitely told me that Damon's request for more money was a key factor at the time. Traditionally Williams have displayed good driver pay management by not getting caught up in the usual market hyperbole. It becomes even more a factor when your team produces the best car.
I still find it funny we're having a discussion, on a FERRARI forum of all places, about people who are the best in the world at a specific job being paid lots of money. Lol. Should the manager of a McDonalds make less money, and in turn should their cleaner and food servants (actually, they're not even that. They type in symbols on a touch screen and are currently being replaced by the same thing just the customer operating it) earn more money? There are many people in the world who can work as a pit crew. There are very few who can drive like Vettel/Alonso/Kimi/Elton/Button/Verstappen/Ricciardo.
In a world where the car is the single largest contributor to the result, is a driver who can get you a tenth (or three) of a second going to make a difference when you're off the pace by two or three seconds? It's money, arguably, being thrown down the drain to pay these guys what they are. I remember a dinner at which Jackie Stewart stated that a monkey could drive a modern F1 car. Maybe not well, but if it's the case, then why spend the money on something that won't produce the desired results? The Scuderia ought to be figuring out how to out-engineer MB. And, now RB, arguably. They simply cannot make up the engineering and design deficit with a fast driver at this level. They've been behind for almost 10 years. It's time to acknowledge that and start allocating the funding to where it will do the most good, IMO. I don't, however, run the show at Maranello. That said, it's a free market, so let the teams waste their money on drivers rather than putting it into R&D or crew resources. CW
This is correct. While Schumacher could get top results out of an average Ferrari, Vettel is not doing the same, even at a reputed 40m per year. Better to redirect a portion of bloated driver salaries into car development.
All true, but beyond a point, higher pay rarely translates to happier employees. Or better performance. Tons of studies demonstrate this, from employees to CEO's. I previously owned a 100 employee business and learned this firsthand. Plus, as so many have said on this thread, it's about supply and demand. Always is.
The argument today doesn't work, because of the huge difference between the Mercedes and any other team. If we ignore the Mercedes story, you could very much say that the guys are the performance differentiator thus earning their money. When Vettel was at Red Bull, most of the time when he won a race, Webber finished 3rd of off the podium. One can say then that had Vettel not been in that team, but lets say Webber and Buemi, Red Bull wouldn't have won all the championships they did. Mercedes enjoys the rare luxury that any driver could easily become world champion in that car. Lets ignore co driver for a moment, because that's the only guy they'll have to beat; but if they put Nasr in that car today, with Haryanto as his teammate. Nasr would become world champion, and have to work pretty hard to still lose a race. There are races that Lewis or Rosberg has won that Nasr/Haryanto wouldn't win, but they'd still take home all championships. Ignore the massive difference in speed however, and most these guys with their skills and less likely to make a mistake, they definitely do earn their wage.
But, we cannot ignore the differential. It's a HUGE fact of life in F1. The WCC hasn't even been in question for numerous seasons. The race for WDC is, for the most part, down to two drivers for the same period. I hear what you're saying, but the race isn't to be second best (the first loser). It's to beat MB. CW
Ah, so you suggest that hiring the best engineers, technical directors, aerodynamicist, etc at a market premium would be the better investment, just as Mercedes did under Ross Brawn when they collected the best of the best (Paddy Lowe, Bob Bell, Aldo Costa, etc) to put together the dream engineering team that moved Mercedes to the front of the pack by late 2013 and has kept them there since?
With all due respect to Stewart, that's the most absurd thing I've ever heard. ~1500 lbs 900HP No traction control Plus all the systems to manage... I gotta meet this monkey! With regard to Ferrari - they make a lot of money on F1. Should they pay Vettel less? Who knows, but they can afford him.
I have monkeys available for testing sessions, if interested. Regarding SpA's "income" and profitability of its' F1 operations, I doubt the Scuderia is at break-even (as a cost center). That said, the company certainly generates huge sales in its' other products (in particular, merchandising) by competing in F1. So, there's a synergistic benefit, and it may be justified under a marketing budget on the basis of brand awareness and promotion value. Most of the manufacturers tend to view it as an expense, but I haven't looked at SpA's financials from their IPO or on-going public disclosures. However, if any teams in F1 are actually making money (as opposed to just spending it), it would be hard to think that SpA isn't in that small group. CW
Certainly yes ! Plus some development input from a former top driver. I would then hire a more cost effective driver such as Verstappen (1.5M per year) and watch him pilot my pre-eminent Mercedes to the top step
Williams expected J. Villeneuve to win the WDC in 1996 and signed Frentzen for 1997. They had already decided to sack Damon Hill. They tried to undermine him all year by saying he was too weak. But to their dismay, Hill did better than Villeneuve and clinched the title. Hill was told late in the season he was losing his seat. William can invent any story about Hill, but they never intended to keep him. Williams also fell out with Mansell and Prost after they were WDC.
Bah...it's just silly. I guess the Dallara Indycar uses is also easy to drive? Let me ask you this - what modern drivers are worthy of your praise? The financial statements are out there. They don't break out R and D into F1 vs road cars, etc. - to my knowledge. The income from F1, F1 sponsorship, and merchandise is substantial - around 8-10% of total income I believe.
For sure that will be the expectation - although actual spend depends how disciplined the teams are, given that driver input is less than in previous eras.
..But that was a no brainer's....Hill was hardly a top ten driver...they could pick anyone and still walk away with the title...
I don't think they fell out with Prost, he simply decided to retire...as for mansell, that's a diferent story, he wanted aload of money, Williams did´'t want to pay, he signed for Andretti and when he was going to anounce it, Williams said they would pay!! Mansell said no thank you!!
Well, I guess I'd ask you how far back does "modern" go in your opinion? That said, of the current crop, I think there's talent (established, developing and emerging). Are they worth what they're being paid? Depends, I suppose. The established talents (SV and LH) are certainly over-paid. I would also likely include FA in this bunch, but he's had a mess of a career since winning his WDCs. Not sure if I feel KR is worthy of this title, though. But, if you put any of these three (or four) in the MB, I feel they win. Arguably interchangeable, because they can extract enough performance from the car, but it's still the car that matters more than anything else, though. Thus, the question of whether they are "worth" what they're getting paid? At the developing level, I think NR and DR are knocking on the door. They need to win WDCs, as opposed to being fast, though to elevate. There might be others I'd consider in this group. This mid-tier group is still getting paid a lot of money. Arguably still too much. Remember, to me the car matters the most. So, if either of these guys are in the MB, they win, too. Emerging talent includes MV and, possibly, others. Because he's relatively young and still new to F1, his compensation probably isn't yet "synchronized" with his value. I still think he's making a lot of money, and, to keep it in perspective, he's probably making more than 99.999% of the people in the world. But, that's glamorous F1 for you. Nevertheless, put him in the MB, and he wins. As for the rest of the current crop, I'd wager that if you put half of the grid in the MB, they are at the front. The car's just that good right now. Just as the RB was. And the Ferrari before it. It took work and development to get them there, but how much of that dominance was due to engineering v. driving on track? In which case, paying a driver $20MM, 30 or 40 to do a job that someone making $5MM, $1.5 or less can do nearly as well (and with arguably no difference in the outcome) seems wasteful. But, of course, a team is going to do what it can to win, and someone has to drive, after all. The real question is, therefore, how much of an advantage does the MB really have? It would be interesting to put a dozen or two of drivers with various skill levels in the car and see where the times would be. CW
To anyone who believes that F1 cars are that hard to drive: back when Jaguar was in Formula 1, someone from Ford's BOD tried the F1 car and he was only 1.5 seconds per lap slower than Pedro de la Rosa, during the same session. I think the track was Silverstone.
I highly doubt that unless that person had significant racing experience. When Hakkinen did a test after his hiatus he was much slower. Current cars again are a vastly different breed than pre-2014 cars. The amount of energy recovering has a huge impact on the way a car drives. Only in qualifying mode (= no harvesting) do they drive like pre-2014 cars.
