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Formula1 Drivers to Strike at Silverstone?

Exorbitant license fees
  
June 20, 2008 1:00 AM by Frank de Leeuw van Weenen
Filed Under: F1

Formula One is big business, and as such only big money is associated with the sport. But there is such a thing as exorbitant amounts of money. The FIA, governing body of the F1, has raised its pricing for superlicences the drivers need in order to compete.

Last year FIA demanded Euro 1,500 plus Euro 250 per point scored from last years competition but this year the prices have been bumped up to Euro 10,000 base fee plus Euro 2,000 per point! Defending champion Kimi Raikkonen has received a bill for Euro 230,000 (110 points) rather than Euro 29,000.

Surely Kimi could easily afford this crazy amount of money, but not everybody is so fortunate to have multi-million Euro deals. Take Robert Kubica for instance, he has received a bill for Euro 88,000 or one tenth of his yearly income.

Result is that the drivers are contemplating a strike, or so goes the rumor, at the sold-out Silverstone UK Grand Prix! The 80,000racing fans will surely be extremely disappointed and its questionable whether F1 could survive yet another big blow after the Mosley affair and the tire fiasco a few years back at Indy.

British F1fanatic points out that the Grand Prix Drivers Association has gone through a strike before, namely at the 1982 South African GP at Kyalami. Where Burnie Ecclestone remarked: “We have been watching Ferraris for fifty years. Ferrari has had God knows how many drivers. They come and go but still all that people want to see is a Ferrari. They cannot see the bleeding driver anyway! Really, I ask you, what asset are they?”

Pentium
June 20, 2008 5:57:53 AM

what the hell is going on with F1 lately?! Drivers strike...yeah..that's all what we need...greedy leaders...!

Spyshot-73
June 20, 2008 9:25:37 AM

Maybe the Fans should not turn up , that would be worse , ahh did hamilton waste too much money on a number plate????

Try doing a proper job for a living and Not paying a weeks wages £300 upwards to watch a bunch of idiots that cant drive.

bristol411s3
June 22, 2008 1:42:07 PM

The money in F1 comes from TV mainly. Fans not turning up would just mean the British GP gets canned and replaced by a race in a nation queuing up to stage a race. Cutting of your nose to spite your face springs to mind.

C-KING
June 20, 2008 11:35:51 AM

That was false rumor that Hamilton bought that expensive numberplate.

dmanero
June 20, 2008 3:16:47 PM

If things keep going as they are now, we may be looking at F1 splitting, like what happened with indy and cart.

_M7_
June 20, 2008 3:52:12 PM

I DIDNT KNEW coulthard was a driver jojo its so bad...they are very well payd or elclestone need a new fetish and thats were he got the money to spend it jaja

bristol411s3
June 22, 2008 1:40:44 PM

Are you confusing Bernie Ecclestone, rights holder to Formula 1, and Max Mosley, president of the FIA...?

carolinaluvr101
June 23, 2008 7:58:28 AM

What the heck. Bernie, come on, you're rich enough! Why the heck can he not realize that he is just pushing more and more away from the sport! By doing this, he will lose more money in the end because only a few will watch and go to these races, which means businesses that spend their money on advertisements and sponsorship will disappear because the fans, the most important part of Formula 1, Bernie, are no more! I hate to say this, but, the NASCAR governing body is much better than that of Formula 1... they value fans and don't attempt to make their sport so exclusive that virtually no one can afford to attend its events. Bernie should exit, like Max. This has gone way too far.

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