An open letter to Formula One drivers.

[Rex Monaco]

Dear sirs.

Know that IndyCar Series teams would welcome your participation in the 2009 or beyond season should you follow FIA president Max Mosley's suggestion of looking elsewhere to ply your trade.

Please note that an IndyCar Series license fee is only $1,000 (U.S.) - a bargain that includes your/three guest hard cards for venue admittance, participant accident medical insurance coverage and other benefits. There are no closing fees, user fees, points fees or even landing fees for your aircraft.

Sincerely,
Indy Racing League management


http://www.indycar.com/news/?story_id=13149

[DBell]

I'm thinking that must be joke. Or someone at Indycar.com is seriously delusional.

[garyshell]

It is a joke, the next paragraph from that story reads:



Yeah, so the letter is fictitious; just a hopefully humorous comparison of license fees for sanctioning bodies. Mosley this week dismissed F1 drivers' protests of increased license fees, essentially telling them to go elsewhere if they don't pay the rate.


Gary

[Dr. Krogshöj]

It is a joke, a bad one. Why don't they mention the sponsorship the drivers would have to bring? At least in F1 everyone gets paid. (There weren't any ride buyers in 2008.)

[garyshell]

At least in F1 everyone gets paid. (There weren't any ride buyers in 2008.)


That might have been the case a few years ago, but it is no longer true. There are ride buyers there as well.

Gary

[Jag_Warrior]

I believe the Mighty Kazoo was put at WilliamsGP as part of the package deal for Yoda engines, but it would be a stretch to call him a ride buyer, IMO. I can't really think of anyone who was required to bring funding in F1 for '08. Sutil maybe??? Dunno. But F1 seemed to have fewer ride buyers last year than at any time I can recall.

BTW, that letter is kind of a sad/pathetic joke. It would be like me writing a love letter to Ivanka Trump after the breakup with my last girlfriend.

[F1boat]

I like the joke :)

[speeddurango]

That might have been the case a few years ago, but it is no longer true. There are ride buyers there as well.

Gary

There weren't such cases before, and despite there were buy riders in 2008, it has the lowest number of all the recent history and they all have talent(which isn't in accordance with the common defination of buy riders).

[Ranger]

That might have been the case a few years ago, but it is no longer true. There are ride buyers there as well.

Gary

Name them, please.

[garyshell]

Right now, Sato, Nakajima. Recently Yamamoto, Sutil (he's not driving this year is he?), most of the Arrows, Super Aguri and Spyker drivers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_driver

Gary

[Ranger]

Right now, Sato, Nakajima. Recently Yamamoto, Sutil (he's not driving this year is he?), most of the Arrows, Super Aguri and Spyker drivers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_driver

Gary

There's only 1 at the moment - Nakajima, but he's a tricky one.

He came with a works engine deal which Williams had to pay a lot for, but at least he showed potential GP2's top rookie in 2007. Toyota have their influence as they would, but I wouldn't call him a pay driver.

[Jag_Warrior]

http://www.forumula1.net/2008/f1/f1-news/no-pay-drivers-on-the-grid/

For 2008:


For the first time in a long time, there are no pay drivers on the F1 grid German magazine Auto Motor und Sport has claimed.
It is thought that this season there are no drivers on the grid who have forgone team retainers and provided their teams with personal sponsorship funds. Kazuki Nakajima and Adrian Sutil are thought to be the lowest paid drivers on the F1 grid, each looking at a pay deal of around $1 million a season. The biggest disparity between earnings at a team is probably at Renault with rookie driver Nelson Piquet rumoured to be earning around $1.5 million a season whilst his more experienced team-mate takes home around $28 million.

[NickFalzone]

If you look at last season, F1 had as many as 1/3 less drivers on the grid than the IRL, so naturally the # of ride buyers is higher in the series with more drivers. And if Bernie had not made drastic changes this season, I think we'd still be looking at 2-4 buyers in F1.

[Jag_Warrior]

If you look at last season, F1 had as many as 1/3 less drivers on the grid than the IRL, so naturally the # of ride buyers is higher in the series with more drivers. And if Bernie had not made drastic changes this season, I think we'd still be looking at 2-4 buyers in F1.

Look at the percentages.

By what I've found for '08, F1 had 0% ride buyers. I don't know the ride buyer percentage for the IRL for '08. But knowing that there was at least one ride buyer tells me that the percentage of ride buyers was something greater than 0%.

2008 was somewhat unusual, as F1 usually has at least a couple of ride buyers - but the percentage has been going down since 1996 or so (according to what I've read).

BTW, I agree with you that Mosley's cost cuts should help maintain the number of paid F1 drivers this season (Bourdais, for one), as well as car count.

I understand the IRL's attempt at humor, but I still think it's cheesy for a professional series to put something like that on its website.

[Chamoo]

I understand the IRL's attempt at humor, but I still think it's cheesy for a professional series to put something like that on its website.


I said the exact same thing in my blog. The IRL website has gotten a bit of a frisky side lately, and I dont like it alll that much. It isn't what a organization trying to make head way in this tough time should be doing.