Originally Posted by Si_Crewe:
“Nah.
The top teams will always be willing to pay for the top talent.
The big problem is, IMO, the current fashion for small teams (and the various driver managers) to treat F1 as a "testing ground" for new talent.
They seem to be happy to take on any yahoo with a big enough bundle of cash, take some of it off them and give them a seat in an F1 car for a year.
Not really sure how it'll be possible to stop this but it certainly seems as though, in future, some of the smaller teams will only exist to take cash and give new drivers a chance to dip their toe in F1 before moving on to a more competitive team or give up.”
“Nah.
The top teams will always be willing to pay for the top talent.
The big problem is, IMO, the current fashion for small teams (and the various driver managers) to treat F1 as a "testing ground" for new talent.
They seem to be happy to take on any yahoo with a big enough bundle of cash, take some of it off them and give them a seat in an F1 car for a year.
Not really sure how it'll be possible to stop this but it certainly seems as though, in future, some of the smaller teams will only exist to take cash and give new drivers a chance to dip their toe in F1 before moving on to a more competitive team or give up.”
The FIA could ban pay drivers with the stroke of a pen if they wanted to - I wish they would. They could prevent second rate drivers and Yahoo's from getting Superlicences if they wanted to as well. Bernie could better distribute the cash he takes around all the teams so they didn't have to consider pay drivers in the first place. Bernie could take less money for himself so the teams got more reward, this could be protected in a re-investment clause to prevent the money from being taken out of the team and not recycled back into the sport - all these things are within the gift of the FIA. If the teams got more money from the sport (and there is plenty there) they could bring back the spare car and re-instate testing during the season - I wish they would do that too, that way young drivers could get the experience without being thrown into the lions den of the race team before they are ready - thats the way it used to be done and I see nothing wrong with that.





) at all. From the reading I have done about the winter testing McLaren appear to be in a very strong position compared with last year. I don't think there is any compelling evidence so far that Red Bull have any advantage up their sleeves but that could be just the usual sandbagging that they are so good at.