Pay drivers

[mediocre]

Hi,

In another forum, somebody just mentioned that Pedro Diniz was one of the first pay drivers in F1. While he certainly brought several truckloads of money with him, I'm quite sure he wasn't the first one. However, in which era did that 'pay driver business' in F1 actually start? I believe it would be much much earlier, some 60s/70s if not even before?

Cheers

[DanielPT]

If we go for a wide "Pay driver" scope, then it is as old as F1 itself, although the expression was not used at the time. At the time this was known as privateers who bought an existing car and funded their racing effort themselves, like Peter Whitehead, who was the first to buy a Ferrari Formula 1 car or Raymond Sommer who raced his own Talbot-Lago. Afterwards with the growing professionalism of F1 it became more reasonable to buy a seat into a team instead of entering its own car.

Anyway, it is common in the early 80s having of drivers who brought in sponsors for a team (I am thinking of Osella). While probably not having to pay to drive, how much the sponsors were willing to give determined who got the seat in the end. Eliseo Salazar was pretty much a pay-driver.

[eagleash]

If we go for a wide "Pay driver" scope, then it is as old as F1 itself, although the expression was not used at the time. At the time this was known as privateers who bought an existing car and funded their racing effort themselves, like Peter Whitehead, who was the first to buy a Ferrari Formula 1 car or Raymond Sommer who raced his own Talbot-Lago. Afterwards with the growing professionalism of F1 it became more reasonable to buy a seat into a team instead of entering its own car.

Anyway, it is common in the early 80s having of drivers who brought in sponsors for a team (I am thinking of Osella). While probably not having to pay to drive, how much the sponsors were willing to give determined who got the seat in the end. Eliseo Salazar was pretty much a pay-driver.

Not really the same thing. Buying a customer car & setting up your own team is not the same as a pay driver. Think I first encountered the term late 60s/early 70s & the prime (notorious) example most cited is usually Rikky von Opel.

There were certainly others & the earlier incarnations of Williams were amongst the worst offenders, in using sub standard yet wealthy drivers to fund their operation. Partly leading to the rules restricting the number of permitted driver changes in any season.

[FullMetalJack]

There were certainly others & the earlier incarnations of Williams were amongst the worst offenders, in using sub standard yet wealthy drivers to fund their operation.

Williams are doing the same now with Pastor Maldonado.

[eagleash]

There were certainly others & the earlier incarnations of Williams were amongst the worst offenders, in using sub standard yet wealthy drivers to fund their operation.

Williams are doing the same now with Pastor Maldonado.

Not kind!

[FullMetalJack]

There were certainly others & the earlier incarnations of Williams were amongst the worst offenders, in using sub standard yet wealthy drivers to fund their operation.

Williams are doing the same now with Pastor Maldonado.

Not kind!

He's crap. So many careless spins, and his weekends at Abu Dhabi and Brazil were pathetic.

[dr-baker]

Niki Lauda was an example of a pay driver too in his early days, wasn't he?

[eagleash]

Niki Lauda was an example of a pay driver too in his early days, wasn't he?

Yes he bought into very early drives at March. & in his book "To Hell & Back" says that Alex Soler-Roig was the first example of "buying in" that he (Niki) knew of.

[WeirdKerr]

Michael Schumacher..... it's been said many times, many ways... oh hang on thats a song....

didnt mercedes pay jordan or something he also brought tic tac sponsorship[ to the time i think... ?

[tommykl]

I believe Mike Beuttler may have bought himself a one-off drive at March in 1972.

[CoopsII]

When you think about it its a funny way to do things and probably unique to motorsport. Can you imagine a football team, whether it was Manchester United, Benfica or Stoke City fielding a player who didnt really know what he was doing but, y'know, these kits dont pay for themselves lads......

[eagleash]

When you think about it its a funny way to do things and probably unique to motorsport. Can you imagine a football team, whether it was Manchester United, Benfica or Stoke City fielding a player who didnt really know what he was doing but, y'know, these kits dont pay for themselves lads......

Hence the tightening of the rules & requirement of a Superlicence.

[CoopsII]

Hence the tightening of the rules & requirement of a Superlicence.

They arent that tight, witness the holy Pastor at Williams. Also, Red Bulls placing of Ricciardo in the HRT was Pay-Driving by default, irrespective of his ability.

[DanielPT]

Hence the tightening of the rules & requirement of a Superlicence.

They arent that tight, witness the holy Pastor at Williams. Also, Red Bulls placing of Ricciardo in the HRT was Pay-Driving by default, irrespective of his ability.

Nowadays you cannot enter F1 if you don't have any sponsors backing you up. The only way might be destroying everyone at feeder series and even then someone will start backing you up and put you in the best seats (like what happened with Hamilton).

[CoopsII]

Nowadays you cannot enter F1 if you don't have any sponsors backing you up.

True enough, so perhaps in that sense all F1 drivers are Pay Drivers. Either way the rules need changing, that we will never see another Giovanni Lavaggi is a crying shame.

[Stramala]

When you think about it its a funny way to do things and probably unique to motorsport. Can you imagine a football team, whether it was Manchester United, Benfica or Stoke City fielding a player who didnt really know what he was doing but, y'know, these kits dont pay for themselves lads......

Sone Aluko. He paid £200,000 of his own money to sign for Rangers. In his first appearance, despite being an attacking left winger, he was way too far back on the pitch and played Manuel Pascali onside which basically lost his team the game. And then he got a two match ban for diving.

That sounds pretty rejectful to me...

[FullMetalJack]

Sone Aluko. He paid £200,000 of his own money to sign for Rangers. In his first appearance, despite being an attacking left winger, he was way too far back on the pitch and played Manuel Pascali onside which basically lost his team the game. And then he got a two match ban for diving.

That sounds pretty rejectful to me...

The fact that he was in my club's youth team originally makes him rejectful enough.

The only exception being Nathan Redmond, as Manchester City are reportedly interested in him.

[David AGS]

When you think about it its a funny way to do things and probably unique to motorsport. Can you imagine a football team, whether it was Manchester United, Benfica or Stoke City fielding a player who didnt really know what he was doing but, y'know, these kits dont pay for themselves lads......

Wenger would have a crack at that player! Mite find a bargain, he's done it a few times.(Im a Gunners fan!)

So kind of like Minardi, and Briatoire for that matter. Find a young star in lower Formula, give him a 'long-term' deal, if any good they can have him and they buy out his contract.

[midgrid]

Reminds me of Ali Dia.

[DanielPT]

Reminds me of Ali Dia.

Souness is well know in Portugal (He managed Benfica in the late 90s) for a lack of scouting and research and shady transfers, so that doesn't really surprises me.

[mario]

Hence the tightening of the rules & requirement of a Superlicence.

They arent that tight, witness the holy Pastor at Williams. Also, Red Bulls placing of Ricciardo in the HRT was Pay-Driving by default, irrespective of his ability.

Nowadays you cannot enter F1 if you don't have any sponsors backing you up. The only way might be destroying everyone at feeder series and even then someone will start backing you up and put you in the best seats (like what happened with Hamilton).

And even amongst the highest rated drivers money can influence things - Alonso's move to Ferrari seems in part to have been brokered by Santander, for example, because the potential advertising benefits were far greater from Alonso than Kimi (that, and the cost of Kimi's contract was cripplingly high).
We've also seen what could be termed as "indirect paydrivers" - a driver who may not be bringing the team income via sponsorship, but has the backing of a manufacturer behind him which yields other benefits instead (Nakajima at Williams, which provided the team with free Toyota engines, or Di Resta at Force India thanks to his connections with Mercedes). Whilst a driver may bring personal sponsorship - like Bruno Senna or Sutil for example - if the manufacturers get their way and make the drive train much more important from 2014 onwards, then deals along the lines of what Nakajima had will probably be more important.

Speaking of which, Andrea De Adamich would probably count as a good example of a historical pay driver who got a seat through manufacturer backing - in his case the manufacturer was Alfa Romeo, with De Adamich getting a seat in cars fitted with the Alfa V8 (except where there were clashes with the sports car championship) in 1970 and 1971.