In the good old days of Gilles Villeneuve, Alan Jones, and Niki Lauda, a Formula 1 driver contract was no more than one page thick. Thirty years ago, a handshake meant more than a signature at the bottom of a piece of paper.
The times sure have changed. All you need is to look at the number of drivers who get fired even though they own a valid contract.
There was Kimi Räikkönen, sacked by Ferrari at the end of the 2009 season in order to make room for Fernando Alonso and the tens of millions of dollars in sponsorship money from Spanish bank Santander.
Not so long ago, Lotus Renault GP Racing's Nick Heidfeld lost his No. 9 car to Brazilian driver Bruno Senna, whose legendary family name and mega-rich domestic sponsors were too good to pass up.
Meanwhile, Alexandre Tagliani had to relinquish his spot for a single IndyCar race to allow the late Dan Wheldon some time on the track.
More recently, Vitaly Petrov was canned by Lotus Renault (again?) despite having a valid contract for the 2012 season. Team boss Éric Boullier apparently had no other choice: Total insisted to have Romain Grosjean on board next year... along with the millions of dollars that follow him.
As we can see, F1 teams have the right and power to shred contracts that contain dozens if not hundreds of pages. What are these contracts for anyway? I guess they serve to protect the teams, not the drivers. Why do they give gigantic amounts of money to big law firms that will review each and every word and punctuation if contracts can be broken so easily?
The sad part is that drivers always lose their job for the same reason: cash. Every single one of them lives with the fear of being replaced with a richer, more marketable driver backed by larger sponsors. In today's struggling economy, money truly is the sinews of war for motorsports teams.
The times sure have changed. All you need is to look at the number of drivers who get fired even though they own a valid contract.
There was Kimi Räikkönen, sacked by Ferrari at the end of the 2009 season in order to make room for Fernando Alonso and the tens of millions of dollars in sponsorship money from Spanish bank Santander.
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| Kimi Räikkönen (Photo: WRI2) |
Not so long ago, Lotus Renault GP Racing's Nick Heidfeld lost his No. 9 car to Brazilian driver Bruno Senna, whose legendary family name and mega-rich domestic sponsors were too good to pass up.
Meanwhile, Alexandre Tagliani had to relinquish his spot for a single IndyCar race to allow the late Dan Wheldon some time on the track.
More recently, Vitaly Petrov was canned by Lotus Renault (again?) despite having a valid contract for the 2012 season. Team boss Éric Boullier apparently had no other choice: Total insisted to have Romain Grosjean on board next year... along with the millions of dollars that follow him.
As we can see, F1 teams have the right and power to shred contracts that contain dozens if not hundreds of pages. What are these contracts for anyway? I guess they serve to protect the teams, not the drivers. Why do they give gigantic amounts of money to big law firms that will review each and every word and punctuation if contracts can be broken so easily?
The sad part is that drivers always lose their job for the same reason: cash. Every single one of them lives with the fear of being replaced with a richer, more marketable driver backed by larger sponsors. In today's struggling economy, money truly is the sinews of war for motorsports teams.