F1 Drivers: Who Bought Their Drive, Who Earned It?

Maldonado is a pay driver, but he is the only one I know of for certain. Some drivers come with lucrative individual sponsorship which may equate to more money for the team but Pastor is the only one who is signed specifically because he pays for it himself

 

And which drivers aren't being paid at all?

 

I think all F1 drivers got there because now or at some point earlier in their careers someone (their daddies, sponsors...) put some money, so all of them had to bought their drive. Then the question should be: "who is the driver who is there ONLY because his money". At this point, I´m tempted to say that nobody, as even Maldonado has some speed and had some success at lesser formulae, but he´s in that group of drivers that need some backing to survive in the grid, like Chilton, Gutiérrez, Pérez, Sutil, Grosjean and others.

 

I think Grosjean would do fine without his backing. He is quick.

 

To be fair Grosjean has shown glimpses of speed and he has matured a lot as a driver. He himself recognizes this and now jokes about his previous crashes and reputation. I don't think he deserves to be put in the group of "pay drivers." I think the main thing that held him back was being teammates with Kimi for 2 years, who thoroughly outshone Grosjean in all areas. However, Kimi is quite possibly the greatest raw talent F1 has seen in the past decade and I think Grosjean will perform better now that he is out of Kimi's shadow.

 

Also Chilton. Daddy bought part of the team and will continue to buy more as long as his son races there.

 

Grosjean is doing fine now, true, but I don´t know if he would have survived his first two seasons if he had not support from Total.

 

It's a shame when there are talented drivers in lower formulae but this is the way it's always been.

 

While Chilton is destined to burn up family money at the tail end, Kobayashi agreed to drive for free this season. Pay driver vs. unpaid driver!

 

Yup. I don't mind paid drivers if they do have a pretty good talent and are always fighting for wins in lower formulae, but I do mind when they're talentless. I don't think he's legitimately outqualified Bianchi once since they've been partnered together, the (very few) only times it has happened was either when Bianchi gave his car up for a test driver or his car actually had problems. Same goes for races.

Never did anything truly special in lower formulae, here because daddy has a lot of money.

And he's doing pretty well at it! Frequently see him at places and you'll think ''how did he suddenly get THERE?!'' .

 

True, all pay drivers are not bad. After all, Lauda originally paid for a drive at BRM and went on to become one of the greatest drivers of all time. The difference is he clearly had potential--the same cannot be said for Maldonado. The man is 29 years old, he needs to give it up and make way for some younger talent from lower formulae