F1 News: End of the road for rent-a-drivers?
With so much money in F1 today, a side effect is the likely disappearance of one blight on the F1 landscape that has plagued the sport for years - the rent-a-driver. Fans of F1 in the mid-90s will remember the likes of Jean-Paul Belmondo and Pedro Diniz peddling around at the back of the grid and making a mockery of the idea that F1 was the pinnacle of motorsport and was home to the two-dozen best drivers in the world.
But with the rise of the manufacturer and the arrival of Red Bull, each year less teams have had to rely on the personal fortunes or backers of rich kids to fund their operations. Yet the practice of taking a driver for his money rather than his talent has continued right up until this year, with Christijan Albers getting his seat at Spyker because of the size of his wallet.
But it seems like this practice is coming to an end. With the cash-strapped Spyker team being bought out by Mr Moneybags Vijay Mallya, there is now no longer any team in F1 that needs to look at a driver’s backers before offering him a contract. Of course, sponsorship considerations still affect driver choice - which is why McLaren cannot employ Jenson Button or Gary Paffett and may feel obliged to go for Pedro de la Rosa instead - but, by and large, every driver in F1 in 2008 (barring perhaps Toyota-backed Kazuki Nakajima) is there because of his ability to race cars.
And that must surely be a good thing.
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