Sebastian Vettel finds talk of imposing a salary cap on Formula 1 drivers as a “funny coincidence” as the sport becomes more profitable.
In recent years, F1 has already imposed its first budget cap on teams for spending on development and other areas, while a similar cap for engine suppliers is also under consideration.
Expanding on efforts to reduce a team’s costs though is an idea to impose a $30m salary cap for both drivers in the coming years.
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But world champion Max Verstappen, who is thought to earn one of the highest salaries on the grid, thinks such a move is wrong given the importance of the drivers to F1’s value.
“It’s still all a bit vague, right?,” the Red Bull driver said back in Baku. “I think no one really knows where it’s going to go.
“But from my side, it’s completely wrong because I think at the moment, F1 is becoming more and more popular, and everyone is making more and more money, including the teams and FOM. Everyone is benefiting.
“So why would the drivers, with their IP rights and everything, be capped? Who actually bring the show and put their lives at risk? Because we do, eventually. So for me, it’s completely wrong.”
Verstappen also thinks such a cap would be detrimental to those drivers aspiring to reach F1, as it would make finding sponsors harder.
“In all the junior categories, if you see how many of those drivers have a sponsor, or a backer, who eventually will have a certain percentage of their income in potentially F1 or whatever, I think it’s going to limit that a lot because they will never get their return on money,” added the Dutchman.
“And if you get a cap it will hurt all the junior categories as well. And I don’t think you would want that.”
That view was also echoed by Lewis Hamilton, who was closely tied to McLaren during his junior career.
“Many of us here have been heavily invested in as youngsters and had to pay that back, which you would naturally want to do, so that for sure could impact the future for the younger generation,” he said.
“We have to remember this sport has gone from like a $4-6billion business to a $14billion business.
“It’s consistently growing. The teams are earning more money than ever before. We are a huge part of that.
“I won’t be here for a huge amount longer but I do think about the younger generation and I don’t feel they should be capped.”
Vettel agreed with that point and followed up with an interesting one of his own…
“It’s just a funny coincidence that it’s the first time teams can make money by racing in Formula 1 and then something like the salary cap for drivers pops up,” said the four-time world champion.
“Just thinking ‘isn’t that funny?’. It’s interesting if you follow where it’s coming from, this proposal.
“Obviously we have a budget cap now which pushes the model towards earnings for all the teams.
“I think maybe they should be capped in terms of having certain fixed earnings and everything beyond that should go to a certain pool to do great things with it and have a positive impact.
“I can imagine the response will be that the topic will disappear. So I’ll leave it to you.”
