Williams: Hill vs Frentzen

[Ranger]

However, another piece of the puzzle was that, according to Hill himself, 1995 was the first time that he (in his words) had been "paid properly" for driving in F1. His previous 2 seasons, he had been paid a pittance by Williams. He therefore was anxious to maximize his earnings potential, since he started in F1 relatively late, and realistically did not have many more years left in the sport.

Hill was paid $300,000 for the 1994 season.
Mansell was paid $900,000 per race that year.

Which I find hilarious, as Mansell was no where near Hill that season.

[V12]

The bottom line is that Williams does not see it as the team's job to provide any form of emotional support for its drivers. That has not served it well on several occasions in the past, and it will continue to lead to issues. All drivers need to be at their emotional peak to perform at their best, and a team that does not manage the emotional environment for a driver is not going to get the best out of him.

While I admire Williams greatly for their "no nonense" attitude, for example if *I* was a driver I'd probably fit in great there unlike HHF did, but basically what you say is true. It's all about maximising your resources, which to this day they do brilliantly on the technical front, but didn't on the driver front on a few occasions.

Or if they were really unwilling to change their philosophy, they should have done their homework on him (similar to "scouting" a player in football, say) and never hired him in the first place and kept Hill. To this day I believe Hill would have absolutely walked the 1997 season had he still been there.

[wedge]

Hill was paid $300,000 for the 1994 season.
Mansell was paid $900,000 per race that year.

Which I find hilarious, as Mansell was no where near Hill that season.

That was his market value at the time considering he was an ex F1 and Indycar champ.

Senna insisted on being paid $1million by McLaren even though the team didn't have the necessary budget in 1993.

And then you have Button who was one of the highest paid drivers on the grid and he achieved sod all compared to Kimi and his $1million retainer.

Mansell still did good a job IMHO, average by his standards but a good result if it was an average driver. As Alesi said at the time, "not bad for an old man"

It's all about maximising your resources, which to this day they do brilliantly on the technical front, but didn't on the driver front on a few occasions.

Reminds me of Mansell and Patrick Head clashing often in the mid-80s. Mansell insisted in not running active suspension during GPs because it failed so often whereas Head insisted in continuing testing the system.

[gshevlin]

Hill was paid $300,000 for the 1994 season.
Mansell was paid $900,000 per race that year.

Which I find hilarious, as Mansell was no where near Hill that season.

Apparently when Nigel Mansell returned to Williams for several races that season, he validated what Hill and Couthard had been saying about the difficulty of driving the car. Williams were anxious for Mansell's feedback, since they apparently did not trust Hill or Coulthard. Mansell however was nowhere near as quick as Damon, especially in Australia, where he was way back in 3rd place when Hill and Schumacher collided, handing him the race.